Veering totally off topic, but hey, it's fun! Competition and a free market can solve most problems. There are some that can't be done efficiently - roads, the military, police, etc. - by the private sector, and there is a role for government.
Regulated industries are traditionally hamstrung in their ability to deliver good market-based service. Airlines, cellular carriers, local exchange carriers. They've been regulated for so long that they've lost any corporate memory of what it's like to provide excellent customer service in order to compete for customers. Government has NO incentive to provide excellent customer service to compete for customers, since it doesn't have to compete. It can raise revenue from taxing and so, unlike private industry, it doesn't have to depend on its customers for its existence. That's why very few parts of government (and the bigger, the worse it gets) provide dazzling customer service. There are certainly industries that need to be regulated to some extent "for the public good", but there are few examples of this working any better, overall, than NOT regulating them. The people who want government control of everything go overboard in one direction, and the people who want no government oversight at all go the other. Usually it swings in the direction of the former, which is why we have so many industries that have lost their way. Government should not be in the business of competing with private enterprise. That's not what it's for. I have no problem with a well-targeted provision for those who are truly unable to provide for their own healthcare. This, as opposed to those who are unable by choice, whose ranks would swell uncontrollably if government provided the kind of sweeping centralized "free" healthcare for all that some running for office support. That's the problem. That's where it comes full circle. Government shouldn't do things the people and the states haven't empowered it to do. Government shouldn't compete with private industry. Government shouldn't overregulate private industry either. When it does any of those things, we end up with problems. IRS, TSA, DMV and all the other acronyms aren't examples, they are a warning. Over, Don -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Craig Froehle Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 9:34 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [OT] US Healthcare (Was "[Treo] Re: New security rules for batteries on planes") On Dec 31, 2007 11:14 AM, Don Ferguson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Government run healthcare for everyone? Ever dealt with the IRS? Yep. And the DMV. And the TSA. And the Post Office. There are examples of bad government operations/policies everywhere. But the government has no monopoly on bad service...just look at the cellular carriers...or the large cable operators...or the airlines. All non-government operations, yet they seem to have many of the same problems. But, just as there are examples of bad service in both public and private sectors, there are examples of good service in both as well. Government is rarely the sole problem, but it is rarely the sole solution. My position is that we need to rethink how we do things, and companies rarely do anything for the public good that doesn't help their bottom lines. Healthcare is as much of a "public good" as are police, fire, military, post office, and education, and we have combined public+private solutions to all those industries (e.g., police are paid for by taxes, but you can always hire your own private security firm for extra service). Health care is the only one where huge numbers of Americans have no access to a public (government-offered) healthcare solution unless they become poor or appropriately aged. A government-run healthcare network wouldn't get rid of private insurers, it would merely add another option to the competitive landscape (think USPS and UPS/FedEx)...and competition is good, right?
