Consumer protection

Under the appealing title of consumer protection we now what I call deception. While the purpose may be to protect the consumer, in practice these rules and laws protect our elected officials, in what in the current vernacular is euphemistically referred to as CYA. For you innocents out there is stands for cover your ass.
I offer three examples out of many that I could list.
Back in the 60’s it was brought to the attention of the government that there were many widows walking around short on cash. Upon investigating they found that the husbands signed up for the type of pension that only paid him and left nothing for his wife after he died. How did this come about? The guy is making $2,000 a month and retires and the boss says your pension will be $1,000. While this is a sacrifice the guy says he will just have to make do. Then the boss says that after you die your wife gets nothing but if you agree to take $800 we will pay her $800 after you die for as long as she lives. Well he thought it over, realizing that he was in good health and that it will be tough to give up an additional $200 after he just took a big cut so he chose the pension just for his self and then he died and his wife has no money. Here is the part where the government comes to the rescue. In 1974 they passed the ERISA bill (employee retirement income security act). This act said that if a man wanted to cut his wife out of the pension she had to sign a document agreeing to that. Since that time the men have gone home with the document and said just sign here dear which she promptly did and we still have widows with no pension.
When I bought my first house in 1959 I signed three pages and the last house I bought ten years ago I signed 20 pagers. These extra pages involve many laws that are designed to protect the consumer from getting shafted. We have recently gone through a mortgage crisis where the experts say the consumers were tricked into buy houses they couldn’t afford. All these laws don’t help if no one understands them but they do serve their main purpose which is to show that the elected officials are doing their job.
The health insurance portability and accountability act known as HIPPA was designed to protect consumer’s privacy when it comes to medical history. The doctors, nurses and other health professionals can lose their licenses if they reveal medical information but others that work in the area seem to fall through the net. If you call for an appointment some appointment secretary takes your call and it goes something like this. I want to see Dr. Jones. What is this about? Well I am a closet gay and I have AIDS and I need some medicine. Ok I the Dr. can see you Wednesday at 2PM. Now the lady sitting next to the appointment secretary hears the conversation and looks up Dr. Jones at Wed 2PM and sees that Joe Smith had the appointment. Turns out that Joe Smith is a friend of her husbands and that night she asks her husband if he knew that Joe was gay. I recently purchased some life insurance and it took six months to get my application approved and most of that time was spend sending HIPPA reports back and forth between various health agencies.