Federal Government Angst seems to be one of the general attitudes driving the opposition to healthcare refrom. I know that there are general horror stories about lack of government efficiency that we've all heard but I think the general complaint of lack of government efficiency is baseless. For instance, the Post Office is one of the biggest targets. I have never personally had a problem with the post office, I've never had a letter or package lost, I've really never heard anyone who has had a major problem with the institution, and when you think about it, it is pretty damn cheap have a document delivered anywhere in this vast country of ours. The post office clearly isn't the only government program and we can argue about others but the general attitude towards the federal government screwing up programs seems to be way off base. I believe this is a negative legacy of the Reagan era who really ran off the fear of the fed and the negative attitude toward the fed. I think its a bit ridiculous when conservative pundits, just go to the, "do you really want the federal gov't running blah blah blah". Its a lazy argument.
Do we seriously trust people. . who will do ANYTHING FOR PROFIT . . ie. denying livesaving and COVERED procedures to save a buck over Federal Employees with nothing to gain by denying you? Why do we TRUST Greedy Corporate types who are only held accountable to their shareholders . . and only then to turn a profit. . not necessarily do the right thing over Federal Employees? Rocket River
Agreed. It's a myth Reagan propogated. Some might argue that it was subsequently proven via bungled republican programs/responses. Regardless of the veracity of that claim, there is a certain irony involved in the Reagan/Bush(s) ideology of government inefficiency, given that those three chatastrophically ballooned the government's deficit spending.
For all the trillions of dollars of federal money spent we have been surprisingly efficient and successful (just to list a very few things): 1. We have the very best educational system in the world, our students are dominating innovation and industry in the global economy making us the leader in manufacturing, capital investment and personal savings. 2. The federal govt. won the war on drugs. 3. Public schools have never been safer and there is less teenage alienation and fewer broken homes than ever before. 4. The economy of America has grown debt free and our infrastructure is secure for the next 50 yrs. 5. We have cleaned up the environment. 6. We are at peace for the first time in over 40 yrs and our troops are home. 7. Our inner cities enjoy new growth prosperity and gangs don't exist. 8. Crime is almost non existent. Stop locking your doors at night. 9. Employment has never been in more demand as industry expands and new job opportunities are flooding into the private sector. 10. We have eliminated racism and acheived equality. 11. Teen pregnancy is almost non-existent and STD's are wiped out. 12. We have won the war on poverty. I don't want to keep going but apparently government has solved most of our problems, at least at the post office. It is amazing what money can buy. All Joking of Course.
Imagine is the Business engine wasn't working against all that . . . just to make a buck. Rocket River
actually I was just waking up and rambling, but what is the difference between big corporations and the govt. I can 't think of any
The postal service has been one of the most successful enitities for over 100 years. They have been highly profitable and fairly efficient. Think of the logistics required to sort through billions of pieces of mail and still get most letters to their destinations within a few days. You can complain about the speed of service at the postal service, but I get worse service at the UPS or Fedex office. They didn't start losing money until the last few years, and it was only because of a paradigm shifting technology called email. Unfortunately, as a government entity, it couldn't reinvent itself or cut services like private businesses do. Its not like the postal service could stop delivering mail or cut service to rural areas. As a government entity, would you want it to reinvent itself? Would you want your health coverage provider to reinvent itself and stop delivering service to you just because it wasn't profitable.
I've had huge problems with the post office but even I'm not sure how much of that would be replicated with government run health-care. I think it's been a combination of inefficiency combined with bad employees working for USPS. In the span of 1 year, we had 4 credit cards stolen from the mailbox, 2 boxes of checks (my sister for some reason still orders checks through the mail), a few bank statements (before I pretty much made everyone go paperless) and a few other documents that were financial in nature. I'd like to chalk this up to a mailman with sticky fingers as it was the only period of time it happened. It just sucked having to deal with all of that at once. Like I said, though, I'm not sure the problems I had would be replicated with any more regularity in government run health-care. Side question: isn't USPS trying to do away with Saturday delivery?
The USPS is one of the best ran government programs. That said, its not saying much. Postage is NOT cheap. Thats like saying prescription medication is cheap when you only buy one pill. The postal service is hit and miss. If you find a post office where the post master hires good employees, then its great. The one that services my area is great and I have a very friendly postal delivery worker while i've been to areas where the service ranks up there with the DPS. Why is it that a postal delivery worker makes around 3x the amount of a bank teller? Its the same reason why American cars suck and the big 3 are on life support ... overpaid employees.
Ahem... I'll just note that your tax dollars buy you the largest, best equipped, best trained wildland firefighting force on the planet. Also the best national park system ever, the best highway system, the largest and best university system, the best weather service, tsunami predictors, earthquake monitors, air traffic controllers, food inspectors, patent examiners, space program, the best nuclear weapons engineers, the coolest spy satellites, and an awesome Coast Guard. (Among other things.)
To be fair, the socialist education system is not that great either, but to be frankly honest, at least it isn't cratering in quality and bleeding titanic amounts of money at the same time or at least not on the same scale as healthcare.
Nobody loves the police except their mamas. That is, unless you need a cop. And by the way, what party has routinely run on a "law and order" platform?
How about the reverse back at you. 1. govt employees are notoriously difficult to fire 2. so why should they care about you?
