by Isaac Hayes

If the Public Option is anything like what I experienced yesterday at the DMV (which I suspect), please call the insane asylum.

Yesterday, I had to update my driver’s license. A pragmatic, streamliner like me figured that I would be in and out of the DMV in no more than twenty minutes. I would go in, update my address, give the camera a nice face to photograph (lol), and then return back to work. Well so much for dreaming.

My public Department of Motor Vehicles’ option turned into a fifty minute quest for Zelda. The first line I waited in was to get a number to go sit and wait to be called. For some reason the long line didn’t seem to stop people from walking right up and receiving assistance while I waited patiently with other frustrated Chicagoans.

Next, they called my number and I went to a desk to explain for a second time that I was there to update my driver’s license. I thought that information would have been on the paper the first guy gave me. With experience working in the service industry I hate having to repeat things. Whatever happened to good customer service where you do all the work for the customer?

I was then sent to another long line to wait to pay for the new driver’s license. Two weeks ago the license would have cost me $10, but being a good Illinoisan I decided to wait until they raised the fee to $30 – a 300% backdoor tax increase.

After that, I had to wait in another line to get a vision test. Somehow the eyeglasses didn’t tip them off that an optometrist had already asked me to read “line 3”. Anyhew, I read line 3 and acknowledged that I saw the blinking lights on the two sides of the screen (although I heard the guy before me say the same thing).

Still not done yet, I was asked to wait in another line to take a photo. (Stand in front of the blue screen and smile – Flash.) I then take a seat to wait for my license to be printed and then voila, government efficiency at its best.

Is this what we really want as Americans – a health care version of the DMV? That’s exactly what the Public Option is. They may have bullied Pharmaceuticals, Insurers, Doctors and Medical Associations, but they won’t bully us into the Department of Health Insurance. The Department of Motor Vehicles is frightening enough.

Isaac Hayes is a Candidate for the 2nd Congressional District of Illinois which includes parts of Cook and Will Counties, and has been represented by Democrat Jesse Jackson, Jr. since December 1995.