When Honey Boo Boo Becomes A Medical Necessity

A legal notice in the classifieds caught my attention last week. It was for Charter Communications alerting readers that the cable provider will be encrypting all of the systems it operates in this area within the next few months.

This switch will mean access to Charter cable service will now require their customers to have a converter box for every TV in a given household. Charter's current offering requires a user to have a converter device only if they pay for digital cable. Users with basic or expanded basic previously haven't needed anything special, but with signal encryption that all changes.

And, of course, change is not free.

Customers of Charter will have to rent these converter boxes for $6.99 a month for every TV they want hooked up to the cable system. There is currently no option to buy them. If you are like me and have four TVs with no digital cable, your bill will increase $28 a month.

To soften the financial blow, Charter is notifying customers who have Basic Service that they are entitled to up to two converter boxes for two years before they have to pay this surcharge. Customers who already have Charter's Digital or the Expanded Basic Services are only entitled to one or two additional converter boxes for one year before the fee kicks in.

However, there was another option buried within the legal notice that I found particularly disconcerting.

If a customer subscribes to Charter's Basic Service Tier and are on Medicaid, they are entitled to up to two converter boxes for FIVE YEARS.

First and foremost, when did cable TV access become a medical necessity? Can you die from not being able to watch the latest antics of Honey Boo Boo? If anything, watching television promotes a sedentary lifestyle, which in turn encourages obesity and that is often the reason behind a number of chronic conditions that generally require medical intervention.

Can't get off your butt to find work or get training that will lead to a better job? Congratulations, you may have just qualified for Medicaid, and thanks to Charter you don't have to worry about paying for that pesky converter box for the next five years. Feel free to take that seven dollars of "found money" and buy the super-jumbo bag of cheesy poofs to snack on while you watch that Real Housewives marathon they're showing on Bravo.

I admit the rant in that previous paragraph is a slight exaggeration.

Charter Basic Service doesn't include Bravo or for that matter, TLC which airs the show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. The tier consists of local network affiliates that most users could get with digital "rabbit ears" if they were so inclined, a bunch of home shopping networks, some religious and specialty access channels, and C-SPAN, C-SPAN2, and C-SPAN3. I can't imagine who would pay to get this programming, much less pay for converter boxes so they could keep getting this programming.

While my ire regarding this hamster wheel of welfare was initially directed at Charter, they're actually not responsible for dreaming up this scheme.

Instead, we can thank the FCC for incentivizing people to stay on Medicaid. That agency is who freed the cable companies to encrypt their signals and they're also the ones who require those companies to provide free converter boxes to people on Medicaid for up to five years. I suppose the FCC feels the mandate is justified because C-SPAN is not available over the air and people on Medicaid are a very important voting bloc to some of that agency's political masters.

Personally, I never watch any of the C-SPAN networks. Most of the programming is just too dull. Perhaps, I would reconsider if they spiced up their offerings.

How about Here Comes The Real Housewives of the Beltway Boneheads? I think that would go well with cheesy poofs.

After having Charter Cable for the past 20 years, the author switched to Dish in January and has been very happy with the decision.