The Angry White Guy

Co-ops suck

Posted December 1st 2009 at 5:05 pm by AWG

You know one of the things that congress was talking about in the healthcare debate was a healthcare co-op… let me tell you about co-ops, they suck! If you’ve never been in a co-op thank your lucky stars that you have a choice…

See if you live in a urban area you likely do not have co-ops the way people out in the country do, I live in the country and I have 3 co-op I am a member of, I have little choice in the matter (think of the co-op public option in healthcare or even the healthcare co-op they’ve talked about) I have a telecom co-op, electric co-op and a water co-op… if I want high speed internet I have to go with Western Kentucky and Tennessee Telecom, all other choices are heavily limited satellite or 56K dial-up, I have no other choice for telephone other than cellular and TV it’s the co-op or satellite. Now when I say high speed it’s 1.5 mps… not exactly high speed it’s just a hair faster than a Dixie cup and string. In order to have 1.5 mps I have to buy their crappy phone service I have no choice (meaning my choice is ‘take that or take nothing’) I don’t need a land line, I don’t want a land line but I have to take it order to get DSL if I want DSL, and to even get close to getting my monies worth I have to get their TV package too and pay about $150 a month for it! ($130.00 + $20.00 is assorted taxes) Otherwise I’ll pony up $109.00 a month plus assorted taxes for 1.5 mps only along with the phone service I don’t want and don’t need. Oh I have a VERY few other options like DirecTV or Dish Network, but their satellite Internet sucks! I know people with it and they can’t stream much at all and they are limited on how much they can download or upload (I forget the name of it)… and with all the streaming going on in this house that would never-ever work around here. So I have no other option but the co-op which requires me to have their phone service which as I’ve said I do not need or want… to have their 1.5 mps internet and phone service only it is $110 month, so I add the TV which bumps it up to $150… otherwise I’m paying $80+ for satellite TV in addition to the $110 internet. Mathematically it doesn’t workout in my favor… so I’m stuck with the co-op unless I move to town. Meanwhile folk in other areas can get 6+ mps, 10 mps or even 18 mps DSL or cable for $40.00 or less. It a normal world it’s called a regulated monopoly, but thanks to the FCC it’s not even though it is.

A little on co-ops … if you don’t know what a co-op is – they claim it’s owned by the customer, it’s claimed you’ll get a return on your investment if they ever show a profit… which they never do as just like the government as soon as they get a few buck ahead they “invest” in upgrades. They even send you a statement claiming this or that much profit was made and this is your return on the investment… BUT, BUT the board of directors decided to reinvest that in the company to “serve you better” this is a joke! As there service sucks and their rates are twice as high as anyone in town. I have by little choice of mine own had to use co-op… my other choice is to live in the city limits and pay all their additional taxes.

For electric you go to WKRECC (West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation) which get their power from the useless and poorly ran government owned TVA (who gave the head guy a million dollar bonus even though they’re losing money) and we pay $0.09768 Kwh some of the highest in the state (state average is around $0.06) on top of a $21.54 point delivery fee… add to that on my bill I pay $4.00 for a right away fee and no one can explain what that is as right-a-ways are free but we for some reason have to pay for them, I also pay a environmental fee for coal fired energy… even though mine electric and comes from hydroelectric turbines at Kentucky Lake Dam… I get the honor of paying additional monies for others coal fired energy. (Think Cap and Trade Jr.) Then there are the other taxes… sales taxes and school taxes all added in every month. Recently I had the meter on my barn removed as the base rate jumped 67.5%…. you read that right 67.5 % increase.. so that meter was gone as I can run underground electric from the main house to the barn and have it paid for within a few months. The remote meter is not worth the price I was paying just to turn a damn light on!

The only thing I get a decent price on is water, as I live in the county I do no have sewer service, I have septic and while my water bill is reasonable and it’s a co-op – it does little to cancel out the high prices on the others. I don’t say all of this to complain about my cost, but to tell you that co-op’s which the government is looking at is not what it’s cracked up to be… so when these geniuses start talking about a healthcare co-ops don’t you believe it, they will do nothing to keep cost down since the running theme is when ever they get a few bucks in their pocket there is some out of nowhere expense they need to use it for that often cost more than they have resulting in higher fees. The rates never ever go down… they promise that they will and they never do, so healthcare co-op… congress is lying to you and I know you are shocked!

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