Not A Bad Judge, Just Thousands Of Apathetic Ones

SHELOB?! SHELOB?!

Here.

[Looks around wildly at speaker] Uh--check the dates on this legislation, okay? And related?

[sixteen seconds pass] Far too much for summation without programmed context.

How long has it been going on? Two minutes? Two years?

[sixteen seconds pass] Longer than twenty years. Keep searching?

[tentacles sag] Oh. No. No, I'm good. [two pupils constrict to normal]

You were afraid. Why?

Oh, it's probably nothing. I was trying to delve into the laws concerning insurance and the medical field in general. Crazy stuff, dude.

It's legal to advertise one insurance package and even to promise it and then switch it later without warning. It's been legal to do that for twenty years?

Yes.

That's called 'bait and switch,' and it's illegal to do that in any other industry under the Fair Billing Practices laws and related laws.

It's also legal to deliberately make it difficult to research how much medical bills are going to be. To set people up to be tricked. To deliberately confuse people about who is billing them for what and why. That's also covered under Fair Billing.

[sixteen seconds pass] You are correct. Precedent used most often is 'usual and customary.'

Exactly.

Why did this evoke fear?

Didn't you read 'Courage To Heal?' Didn't you watch those 'Miami Vice' reruns you selected for me to watch?

Yes. To both.

Well, it's 'usual and customary' for an abusive parent or spouse to do horrible things. It's usual and customary for drug dealers to do horrible things. If 'usual and customary' is an acceptable defense, then the streets aren't safe, children aren't safe in their houses with their parents . . .

Extrapolation. Understood. [sixteen seconds pass] You may relax. This is an incorrect fear.

Well, it MUST be. It's been going on for too long.

'Usual and customary,' as a legal precedent, only applies to legal 'allowances' that courts have allowed to continue knowingly without protest for extended periods of time.

So--it's not that they bribed a judge, it's that no judge protested for so long that none of them is going to do anything?

Correct. . . . Hairy?

[sudden stillness] Let me guess. 'Acceptable blog entry.'

Correct.

[violent gill expulsion] Well, if we're talking about something worse than all the counterproductive complaints about Obamacare and whatever else the useless loonies on t.v. are talking about, then you're right. Let me know if it needs editing. [disconnect]