The “Cash for Clunkers” program may be a good preview of how a government-run, national health plan of some type could run. And the intitial returns aren’t too promising.
I spoke with a car dealer I know (I know a few of them) about the program which has already needed more funding (shocking!). Here are some the things mentioned by this car dealer.
- Instead of a simple form, the government has a 6-page document to be filled out by the dealer.
- The owner of the supposed clunker must provide numerous forms of proof of long-term ownership.
- The government documentation outlining the plan and process is 150 pages long. It is in a pdf file (good) but the Table of Contents lists the sections by Roman Numeral, not page number making it difficult to find the actual section you need at the moment. They printed it and use Post-It notes to identify the most used portions.
- The engine must be seized and the car crushed at the time of sale, which proceeds the time of approval. The dealer will be out $4,500 (pluse the costs of seizing and crushing) should the clunker not be approved. They received notification that they are unable to hold the former owner of the clunker responsible.
- This dealer has yet to receive any money from the government. How? you say. The increase in funds was based on estimates of clunkers already brought in, but not yet approved. This means the dealers are left hanging in the wind financially while the government takes inordinate amounts of time to process these applications. Talk about being held hostage, Mr. President.
If you ask me, it isn’t looking good. The American consumer may see some short-term benefit. Not really, only those who have clunkers, which is a small portion of the population (sound familiar?). But the providers of cars get the short end of the stick. They spend hours processing paperwork, hoping to get reimbursed by a slow-moving government to might not pay. They aren’t out a few hundred for tests, but thousands they can’t recover because the car has been destroyed rather than salvaged. And the American taxpayer gets stuck subsidizing new cars for others without any assessment of why that person is econimically disadvantaged (illness, injury, poor choices etc.). This does not bode well for the vast majority of us.
Cavman Considers 
and why arent these cars being shipped to other countries where they could use them, instead of being destoyed and filling up landfills? or parted out to help others with their cars?
seems pretty stupid to me, but who am i but a SAHM with a 2006 Mazda
not much about this program makes much sense to me.
I’m assuming the rationale is to reduce man-made global warming by taking these older vehicles out of circulation.