Why do people vote for Hilary and Obama?

[famousringo]

elprincipe said:

Final-Fan said:
Also: I can't dig up the specific case without doing more research than I care to do at work, but I recall a comparison of a U.S. government employee health care system (run by the federal government, natch) that was super-efficient with very little bureaucratic overhead that put private health care companies to shame. What has you so convinced that they couldn't duplicate that example writ large?

When companies merge, they usually eliminate a lot of duplicated and wasted effort, right? So one entity doing all the work would, all else being equal, be most efficient, right?

Finally, the U.S. government is the largest nonprofit organization in the world. There isn't a constant drain of money to stockholders. And the CEOs don't drain coffers further with ridiculous pay packages.

Don't think I'm unaware of the drawbacks of government control. But there is a lot of upside, too.

Your confidence in government is exceedingly naive. I've lived in the Washington, DC area most of my life. I've seen these guys at work. Government efficiency is an oxymoron.

You think that government-run health care is more efficient than private? Prove it. I'll be prepared to eat crow if you do, but I seriously doubt ever having to do that.

Constant drain of money to stockholders? Yeah...government does so well with its finances that it has a debt of over $9.1 trillion currently (http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/) that is increasing every second of every minute of every day. Yeah, sure, government has less bureaucracy and higher efficiency...except that it never has for any government program in the history of mankind. I await any proof (nonexistent though it may be) to the contrary.

Note that I am not defending CEO pay packages, some of which are ridiculous.

Dude, check my first post in the thread. I detail how the US medical system, with the least government involvement in the developed world, is among the least efficient.

You do have a point that the US government often does a terrible job of administrating public programs. That's a failure of your government, not a failure of public health care systems in general. There are a great deal of public or partially public health care systems that work much more effectively than the US private system.

It may not be easy, but it is possible to get better performance out of your government. They say that in democracies, people get the government they deserve...