The Efficiency of De Ebil Gubmint Man
I’ve pointed out before that in some areas (here, Medicare), government programs are hugely more efficient and well-run than their private counterparts.
I don’t know if this qualifies as one of those, but it does make a very important point that I’ve also made before:
Government is not the problem.
Bad government is the problem.
Good government is the solution.
…the government-wide [payment] error rate has decreased to 4.3 percent, having steadily declined from its high-water mark of 5.4 percent in Fiscal Year (FY) 2009.
That high-water mark would represent the culmination of eight years of Republican laissez-faire administration (boy you can say that again), coupled with six years of Republican control of both houses of Congress.
OMB: Eliminating Billions in Payment Errors
Cross-posted at Asymptosis.
Medicare is effective, but “efficient” not so much.
1) there has been uneven control on utilization and payment (see #4)
2) the “pay-and-chase” model of fraud prevention has been a flop
3) most of the real work is done by private contractors
4) to be fair, Congress has made life difficult for CMS (something in DC is bipartisan)
@save_the_rustbelt
Compared to private insurers?
No program is perfectly efficient. Want the best we can put together and manage…
Steve
There is a lot of room for improvement in Medicare, enough so it could conceivably cover much of the increased cost of the rising number of babyboomers. At the same, this excess has been allowed to exist in the form of excess profit in the service for fee cost model for commercial insurance. The plan is Healthcare Reform will improve the efficiency of Medicare and lower costs by allowing it to negotiatiate with the supply base.
– Is the state highly incentivized to select and accurately measure robust accountability metrics for itself?
– Should we rejoice if the state becomes more efficient at “ebil” acts?
– Are programs really private if they’re protected from competition by state-erected barriers to entry and given direction by state regulation?
– To what problem, exactly, is “good government” the solution?
– Is laissez-faire a continuum or a binary condition? I submit that Medicare Part D, the PATRIOT Act, the bank bailouts, etc., aren’t exactly examples of anything being left alone.
– To what problem, exactly, is “good government” the solution?
Let’s see. There’s anarchy, chaos, safety in the streets and on the highways, providing quality educational opportunities, etc. The list is almost endless. Why else do you suppose that people have been forming governments throughout history? Of course that doesn’t mean that those have all been examples of good government.
“I submit that Medicare Part D, the PATRIOT Act, the bank bailouts, etc., aren’t exactly examples of anything being left alone.”
We were talking about good government. Your legislative examples were the result of some other form of government. The more important issue is why it is so difficult to establish good government. When voters earning middle income money, or less, vote for someone like Romney or Ryan the answer to the elusiveness of good government becomes obvious. The rest of us end up thinking that we’re lucky to have avoided Armageddon, though we may find ourselves sailing away on the Titanic.
all ears
you are typically short sighted about government “inefficiency.” government takes on the work that private enterprise can’t make a profit at.
but here is an example: you go into the DMV and get mad because you have to wait longer than you wanted. then another day you go into the DMV and you get mad because it’s almost empty and you see employees “not working.”
i think i will leave it at that. if you can’t see the point, you will have to remain a Republican.