This is Another Fine Mess

Laurel & Hardy were silent screen, then later "talkie's" comedy stars in the early to middle 20th century.

Stan Laurel played the dim-witted sidekick to Oliver Hardy's bumbling "brains" of the duo. In true comedic fashion it seemed that Stan's crazy idea's usually worked out but not without following a circuitous route with seeming disastrous effects.

Before our hero's found the solution, but while in the middle of a mess, Oliver would turn to Stan and pronounce "This is another fine mess you have gotten us in to."

Seems this AIG mess has their own version of Laurel & Hardy.

Don Weiner is a political and labor consultant who weighs in on the AIG takeover. Among his suggestions are the following.

He states that AIG has health care policies and presumes they have "turned down tens of thousands of people because of their pre-existing conditions."

Hate to burst your bubble Donny, but AIG isn't really in the health care business. They do offer medical reinsurance for large employer plans as well as some specialty, indemnity plans to individuals. But in the group market they cannot reject someone due to a pre-ex condition.

Their indemnity plans offer limited benefits and have almost no underwriting standards.

But let's humor him for sake of discussion.

Now that we are each stakeholders in AIG, we should insist it review those rejections and insure some number of people in each state who are without insurance. Better yet, why not force AIG to open up a month-long window in which people who have been turned down by other health insurers can re-apply to its agents?

Noble idea I suppose but how does the federal government, who has no stake in regulating insurance carriers, single out a carrier for punishment and presume to tell them to change their business model? Why not force WaMu and Wachovia to offer no interest loans to anyone who applies, regardless of their credit history?

Makes about as much sense.

Second, now that AIG is akin to a quasi-federal agency, the unions should demand collective bargaining rights, as they do with other government entities.

The company employs 117,000 individuals, most of them unorganized. There are thousands of clerical workers, for example, at AIG's main offices who have seen the company shares in their 401(k)'s shrink by 95 percent.

Great.

Kick them while they are down and force them to increase their costs by taking on union employees.

That's like offering a drowning man a drink of water.

You really can't make up this stuff.