In Order to Form a More Perfect Billing System
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the announcement you have been waiting for. I am-are you ready?-forming a committee to study the possibility that I may, someday and somehow, run for . . . er, president. I am contemplating the formation of such a committee for the following reasons:</br></br>Ladies and gentlemen, this is the announcement you have been waiting for. I am-are you ready?-forming a committee to study the possibility that I may, someday and somehow, run for . . . er, president. I am contemplating the formation of such a committee for the following reasons: 1) I am better qualified for the White House than some of the people running; 2) I need a place to live in downtown Washington that has a pool; and 3) I have an absolutely unbeatable platform that has nothing to do with trade, foreign policy, raising or lowering taxes or taking a position on such issues as surrogate motherhood, about which I change my mind almost daily. Instead, I simply propose that all of us-the rich and the poor, Republican and Democrat, Christian and Jew, of whatever sexual orientation-be given a single account number for all our credit cards and other bills. I would make this a law.</br></br>Under the Cohen administration (merely to write those words gives me a thrill), no one would ever again have to study a bill with Talmudic intensity (and often in poor light) to find an account number to write in the lower left-hand corner of a check. There would be no account number, such as the one I have with a bank that was silly enough to grant me credit, that has-count them-seven zeroes in the middle of the number and that, every month, I have to count out to write on the check. I am afraid, as I should be, that if I am wrong by one zero, my payment will wind up in Ollie North's Swiss account and go to underwrite a dinner for Los Freedom Fighters in a Miami restaurant.</br></br>The Cohen administration would see to it that each and every bill payer has the same account number for American Express, Visa, Choice, MasterCard, Exxon and even the gas company. Moreover, it would be against the law for any company to add a prefix to your account number, leaving you unsure of just what your real account number is and unaware that you have made a mistake until you try to write the number in the little boxes on the envelope and see that there are too few boxes for the number that is already on the check sealed inside.</br></br>Moreover, the Cohen administration would insist that all checks be made out to the name of the company on the credit card. Thus, checks to Visa would be made out to "Visa" and not, as is the case, "UV Bak," whatever the hell that is. As it is now, I have to pause before writing out every check to see what fool name the company has come up with. Usually, the information is found in very tiny print somewhere in a maze of disclosures, indecipherable interest rates and notices that you have exceeded your credit limit. Visa would be Visa, and that would be it. In addition, any bill from a group health practice would have to state in capital letters who the check should be made out to (Feinblum, Smith, Golden, Arrowsmith & Newman simply will not fit on a check).