Tag Archives: Healthcare reform

Chapter 86, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”

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Another week missed!  I think I was trying to catch up on sleep after two busy weekends of Cotton Patch.  Time to buckle down and type.

I like to think there are three different kinds of leaders.  I call this the Clint Eastwood theorem.  They are the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Named after the 1966 spaghetti western of the same name.  The “Good” is pretty self-explanatory as is the “Bad”.  The interesting ones are the “Ugly”.  These are the ones that actually get things done but it’s never on the straightest or most logical path.  It’s a pretty broad category but it’s also the most entertaining.

I’ve written several blogs about guys I’ve worked for.  Mostly commanders, but I’ve also worked for a variety of folks who were what we call “section chiefs”.  These are guys who are in charge of specific squadron functions like Current Operations or Scheduling, to name a few, but aren’t commanders.  They’re guys who are ambitious enough to take on a bigger job and hope to, someday, be given the opportunity to be actual commanders.  In other words, they’re getting to learn by making mistakes in a area  that won’t screw things up to badly for the whole squadron.

As a young Air Reserve Technician (full time reservist/civil servants for those unfamiliar with the program) you often find yourself the sole full-timer in a section trying to do what, on active duty, would be accomplished by a staff of five or six.  It’s one of the things that makes the reserves so efficient but it can mean a lot of pressure to manage the daily flying program.  There might be another four or five reservists in the shop, but they may only be there two days per month leaving you to do the lion’s share of the work.  On top of that, the section chief is usually a reservist and unless he fully grasps the reality of the workload, you can find yourself working for someone with, shall we say, unrealistic expectations.

I once had a reserve supervisor who had a highly successful civilian job but he had absolutely no management experience.  He would come in for the UTA (drill weekend) and decide that the entire program needed to be revamped.  He would brief the squadron commander of the new direction and promptly disappear for 28 days.  He couldn’t be reached, because he was too busy, and I was left fend for myself.  He would reappear on the next UTA and complain that his new program had not yet been implemented.  Because of him, I identified a new subset of the “Ugly” category.  I call it “I think, therefore it is”.

I’m sure, if you think about it, you can come up with someone that fits into this category and maybe we all do a little.  We can have all of the best intentions of doing or changing something but unless we actually DO something it won’t happen.  I see all of these programs to “raise awareness” about every disease or social ill but being aware is not “doing”.  You might feel good about how compassionate and caring you are but feelings accomplish nothing.  Leaders don’t throw out ideas and assume things will get done just because they’re in charge.  Leaders coach, mentor, manage, follow up and clarify when necessary.  These are skills that are learned through years of experience.  Years of observing those who have already figured it out and years of making mistakes along the way.  You just can’t take someone who has never managed anything but himself and put him in charge.

Thankfully, my ” I think, therefore it is” guy never became a commander.  Sadly, our nation is not so lucky.  The current healthcare debacle is a direct result of putting an “I think, therefore it is” guy in the White House.  Someone who has never run anything but his own life is trying to take charge of our lives.  His failure to take any interest in a process that will negatively impact the lives of millions demonstrates a complete lack of leadership.  He claims to be a visionary but the only vision he offers is a backwards look to the failed socialist policies of the last 100 years.

There’s no substitute for rolling up your sleeves and doing the hard work.  Managing without micromanaging.  Surrounding yourself with people who will tell you the truth not what they think you want to hear.  I pray it’s not to late.

Chapter 84, Heartless

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Alright, I’m back in the saddle.  For those of you who care, Cotton Patch Gospel is going great with only three performances left.  Friday, 11 Oct @ 7:30 and Saturday 12 Oct @ 2:00 and 7:30.  If you have any questions, from the audience perspective, I’m sure Stan George will fill you in!  Thanks for coming Stan!

It occurred to me the other day that there is a large percentage of the population that has little or no understanding of how bureaucracies actually work and why they’re so potentially dangerous.  For the most part, you never really have to interface with them on a day to day basis until you start getting older or you work for an agency of the government.  Sure, we all have to deal with the IRS, state and local tax collectors, and the DMV, but you really can’t grasp the true nature of bureaucracies until you’ve aged a bit and run into the immovable force of the barely competent that makes up the federal government. Or as Dr. McCoy said it in Star Trek, “The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe”.

As I’ve certainly mentioned before, I attended UPT (Undergraduate Pilot Training) at Laughlin AFB, Del Rio TX.  Peg and I became engaged a year before I started UPT and we decided it would be best if we set a date for the wedding after I graduated.  Her spanish skills are non-existent and we decided that I would have enough stress in my life without being a newlywed at the same time.  So, for the whole year of training, my input into the wedding planning involved talking to Peg on the phone every Saturday and dutifully agreeing with all of her wedding plans or, at the very least, saying “Does Hartman care?”  A rhetorical phrase I picked up from one of my instructors.  However, I did have one very critical function in the planning process and that was graduating on time.

At  the time I really didn’t grasp how easy it was to “wash back” a class and not graduate on time.  Even a minor injury could keep you from flying for several weeks and you’d find yourself delayed a month.  Bad weather, broken airplanes, busted checkrides, all of these things or combinations could wreak havoc with wedding plans but contingency planning wasn’t really part of our thought process.  Luckily, other than some really bad weather in January which forced us to fly 7 days a week in February, everything stayed on track for graduating on 4 August and an 11 August wedding date.  That is, until the bureaucracy stepped in.

There was a lovely woman who worked in the personnel office at Laughlin who had worked there for many years.  When you were about four months from graduation she would brief the class about follow on assignments and schools.  She was in charge of scheduling your life after UPT and she had figured out how to avoid all of the pitfalls of system and she had done it for decades for thousands of students.  I remember clearly her asking if there was anyone in the class that needed to take some leave after graduation before their next school.  I fully understood my role in the wedding plan so I rushed to the front of the room after the briefing and explained that I was getting married exactly one week after graduation and that I needed at least a total of two weeks off before my next school.  She smiled, congratulated me, thanked me for letting her know, and made a note.  I had fulfilled my duty, mission complete.

I think it was the first week of July when our orders came down.  I actually go mine before anyone else in the class and I was anxious to see how the next three schools would flow out.  I opened the manila envelope and panic set in.  She had, indeed, made sure that I was available for my wedding on the 11th of August, but she had scheduled me to report to survival school at Fairchild AFB, WA on the 12th of August.  A honeymoon of trudging through the woods and being smacked around in a POW camp with 30 other guys.  Good times!  I was, to say the least, a little perturbed.  I found the office of the lovely lady from personnel and I, the lowly 2nd Lt, politely asked her what had happened.  She looked up from her desk,  immediately recognized me, and then proceeded to tell me that it had worked out better for her scheduling to do it that way and that I could at least get married.  She said it all with a smile on her face and ended it with a curt “Sorry”.  Well, I figured, it is what it is.  I serve at the whim of the Air Force.  So, with my head hung low, I headed back to the squadron.  All the while trying to figure out how to break the news to Peg.

I guess I was a little distracted the rest of the day because my instructor, Bill (Buck) Vrastil finally asked me why I was so uncharacteristically forlorn.  I told him my sad story and he leapt from his chair and stormed out of the room.  Ten minutes later my flight commander and squadron commander called me into the office and asked me to tell them the story.  They had a similar reaction. As the squadron commander left the office he told me he was going to see the wing commander.  I tried to stop him.  I didn’t want to make waves. I didn’t want to buck the system.  I didn’t want the bureaucracy to get mad at me.  He told me something that I have taken to heart my whole career but which flies in the face of everything I’ve seen from the federal bureaucracy since then, “We don’t treat people this way!”.

Within an hour the wing commander and the “lovely lady” from personnel had both called me and apologized for what she had said and done.  My orders were changed.  Survival school was rescheduled.   And Peg got a honeymoon.  She was still stuck with me, but she got a honeymoon.

Now don’t get me wrong.  There are caring compassionate employees in all systems but the further up in an organization you get the less personal and compassionate it gets.  People become numbers.  Customers become liabilities and problems.  The desire to solve the problem the system was created to address becomes secondary as the bureaucracy becomes a self-perpetuating “career building” organization.  History has proven it time and time again.  Maybe altruism gets the ball rolling but careerism and empire building take over.

That is why socialized medicine cannot ever work.  The middleman will just get bigger and bigger and absorb into the bureaucracy what should be going towards medical care.  If you really think adding another layer between you and your doctor will cut costs then you might need to take advantage of some of your mental health benefits.

Chapter 74, “Finally”

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Finally!  1 July 2013, is finally here!  Those of you who work for the Federal government might want to,  for planning purposes,  take note.  I retired 8 months and 2 days ago and today I receive my first retirement check.  There were no errors in the package, no documents missing, no clarification required on any forms.  AFPC (Air Force Personnel Center) executed their part of the process flawlessly.  But, once my package reached OPM (Office of Personnel Management) it was as if I ceased to exist.  A file in an “In” basket waiting for the bureaucracy to decide it was my turn.

When I retired I was told that I could expect to wait 3-6 months for the process to be complete. (How many of you, getting close to retirement, have saved up 6 months of living expenses!?)  When, after 4 months, I was finally able to actually speak to a human at OPM I was told that the waiting period was actually 6-12 months. (How many of you, getting close to retirement, have saved up 12 months of living expenses!?)  That’s when I decided it was time to be the squeaky wheel.

I called and I emailed.  I spent hours on hold.  They promised that they would answer emails in “just 20 working days”.  20 working days?  That’s a month!  To answer an email?  I repeatedly got scripted responses and it soon became obvious that their goal was to simply put me off for another month.  Just keep kicking the can down the road by giving me a nugget of hope that it was almost done.  I was very close to calling in some favors from two congressmen and two senators but I really wanted to see how long it would actually take and, besides, I know how easily bureaucracies can deflect and delay congressional inquiries.

So what’s the point?  Am I whining, or just boring ya’ll by venting?  Maybe a little of both.  But the real point is this.  This is a process that has been in place for decades.  People retire every day.  There’s nothing new.  So why doesn’t the process work?  Thomas Sowell once said, “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong”.  Sadly, when a bureaucracy fails, no one gets fired.  It simply gives the bureaucrats ammunition to ask for more money to “improve”  the process and enlarge their empire.  And it’s the same at all levels.  Remember the last time your school district, or city, or county had a fiscal crisis because they overspent on frivolous programs or bloated staffs?  Did they try to manage your money better, streamline, or get more efficient?  No, they told the community that they would lay off police, firemen, teachers and eliminate essential infrastructure repairs unless they got a tax increase.  Pathetically, a significant percentage of the electorate actually believe it.

So, let’s put on our logic thinking caps.  How can it be possible to reduce the cost of something like healthcare by adding an enormous new bureaucracy on top of the costs of hospitals and doctors and medications?  How can we get better care when decisions about your health aren’t made between you and your doctor but by an unaccountable bureaucrat who just sees you as another file in his in box?  It is, of course, not possible.  The bureaucracy will simply grow and grow and grow and demand an ever increasing budget so that it can fix the problems it has created.  Can you afford to wait for a bureaucrat to decide if you should live or die?

My retirement is just money.  I anticipated the failures of the system because I’ve seen how the system hasn’t work for the last 35 years, but I don’t think any of us are ready for the inevitable results of the destruction of the best healthcare system in the world.  As my friend Dr. Dave always said, “Getting old is not for the faint of heart”.