What's your problem man? I'm saying if the private sector is more efficient, then by all means use the private sector.
Its not just an issue of the efficiency which the government or private sector spends its money, but also an issue of the costs imposed on others. The government raises its money with very complex tax laws that impose a much greater third party cost, than most ways the private sector raises money. If taxes where very low and extremely simple than the dead weight loss wouldn't be a significant consideration, and you could just compare the efficiency of each (which would still often be higher in the private sector, but not in every case).
Beyond the deadweight costs of taxation, there are also different ways to look at efficiency. Lane3 (on "The View from the Center", points this out better than I think I could, so I'll quote her here)
"Efficiency
Maybe your mind is boggled because you're tangling two different kinds of efficiency. I love efficiency, both kinds, but we really need two different words for it. On one hand we have what I will call streamline efficiency. I think that's what you mean when you talk about economic efficiency. That's when processes are, well, "efficient," in common parlance. Smooth, with all the steps crisp and necessary. Cost-effective. That's the kind of efficiency you get out of single payer. The processing runs like a clock and costs come down.
Then there's efficiency in the capitalist sense, called economic efficiency. It's a rowdy process. You have companies going in and out of business. Products coming and going. Decentralized. Lots of duplication of effort. Lots of extraneous activity, dead ends, DOA products. Quite the opposite of streamline efficiency. But this little kernel of capitalist efficiency produces wonderful quality and selection of ideas and products, innovation and responsiveness, not to mention big bucks. This is the exact opposite of what you get from centralized, streamlined systems. It seems a contradiction from the common-parlance term, efficiency.
If we choose streamline efficiency, we lose the innovation of the market. Our systems may be streamlined and cost-effectiveIf we choose market efficiency, we lose streamlining. Personally, and abstractly, as a war horse of a systems analyst, I adore the streamlining. And I love saving admin costs. But I am also a capitalist. I worry about the inevitable stodgy, bureaucratic datedness and second-rate products. I think the advocates of single-payer in their eagerness are losing sight of the consequences."
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