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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (9133)	9/6/2009 5:25:30 PM
From: Lane3	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

What government in general does well in things that can be specified to the letter. I think that's somewhat off target in a couple of ways. I agree that the bureaucracy is good at mechanical things as demonstrated by its ability to crank out checks. (I friend of mine had a career with the folks who do that. Very competent, indeed.) But the bureaucracy performing those tasks effectively and efficiently is not how I would define a successful government function. Just because the correct recipients get checks on time doesn't mean that their getting them promotes the general welfare. The critical arena for the government doing things well is not in the operational mechanics but in the design of its programs and those come from congress. So, I'm differentiating between the efficiency of the bureaucracy in implementing its mandate and the government legislating the mandate. I think health insurance falls into the prior category. As for health care, I imagine the bureaucracy could process claims well enough or contract it out to some private outfit who could. But then that's just one tiny part of the role government would play in health care. That the claims processing bureaucracy might do that one thing well is of trivial consequence in determining whether the government would be do health care well.