How's deregulation working out for you?

[leftofthedial]

Telecom?

Airlines?

Mortgage industry?

Credit card industry?

Insurance industry? (home, car, medical, life?)

Health care?

Has it been swell? Or not so much?

[gateley]

1. Not so much. nt

[canoeist52]

2. deregulation

not to mention the grandaddy of them all the OIL industry!

[Selatius]

3. What was health care like in the 1960s/1970s before HMOs?

Anybody have a clue if it was more personalized and people-oriented before Nixon's HMO legislation in 1972?

[lumpy]

6. To answer your question. Yes, definately. I think real problems

began when physicians let control of their very profession fall into the hands of insurance companies.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. it has proven to be an exercise in futility for me. I give up. I can has

my life back now...pleze --

[NuttyFluffers]

5. i will gladly surrender plenty of my airline "choice" to go back to comfort

chillin' in the Pan Am et al member's lounge, actually having leg room, free children toys from the airlines, passably tasty food (and some great stuff in 1st class), and people being somewhat HAPPY blows away any of the advantages i have gained from flying in the past 10 years..

flying sucks now. i'll gladly welcome "Totalitarian Socialist Airlines" if they can make flying even remotely close to a joy again.

[AspenRose]

8. One of my friends was a flight attendant in the 70s

She would vouch for what you said.

[lapfog_1]

7. Electric utilities

ask California how that is working out for them right now...

can we say Enron, anyone???

One of the biggest deregulation disasters in the world.

[RB TexLa]

9. We have unlimited long distance, the old AT&T was never going to give that

and we don't have to rent our telephone from them. Our electricity is much cheaper than when we only had a choice of TXU or no electricity.

[MadHound]

10. It means that I have to be much more selective in picking my services

I'm part of a phone coop, one of those left over from the New Deal era. It is a wonderful thing and hopefully more people can work with one.

I haven't flown in a long while, and with Homeland Security and all that hassle, I doubt that I will fly anymore unless I'm going overseas or up in a small, private plane.

I got my mortgage from a relatively small, local bank that I've been doing business with for over thirty years.

I've never had a credit card, and now is certainly not the time to start.

I have my insurance through a regional insurance company that is based about twenty miles away.

Health care:shrug: I find it to be a pain in the ass. I haven't had a stable, local doctor for awhile now, and I'm still looking.

Overall I find deregulation to be destroying our country. I'm very picky about some things, so deregulation doesn't effect me, personally, very much. But it is wrecking our country and needs to be stopped.

[trotsky]

11. In nearly every case, early "improvement" was soon followed by...

rampant profiteering, corruption, and mismangement. There is a reason some markets must be tightly regulated - and it's a damn shame we have to keep learning that lesson OVER and OVER and OVER.

[porphyrian]

12. It isn't, but I don't matter enough for my vote to count. -n/t

[SweetThingy]

13. Airline, Telecom and Credit Cards has worked well for me. Insurance hasn't.

Health care I don't know about and I've never had a mortgage.