(In response to Jeff Jared’s recent column, “Government: The good and bad”) I’m glad to see that Jeff Jared acknowledges that there are some things that government does well. His column contains a number of incorrect statements, or statements that simplistically and improperly assign blame to the government (like who’s to blame if little Billy or Sally doesn’t get a good education when the problems are largely at home), but I don’t have the inclination or space to address them all here.
His comment about the Post Office, however, might provide an opportunity to make a point. If an organization is judged by how well they perform their primary function, it’s pretty hard to fault the Post Office. Last year the Post Office handled 203 billion pieces of mail. I don’t know what their exact performance metrics are but by all appearances the mail gets delivered properly the vast majority the time. I know they mess up once in a while but so does UPS with a fraction of the volume. When I need to send a package I typically compare prices between the Post Office and UPS (maybe FedEx too) and the Post Office is usually cheaper. Yes, I might have to wait in line for a few minutes at the Post Office but I’m willing to do it if I want the best price. And, I have confidence that my package is just as likely to be delivered properly as it would be if I used UPS. This is an example of the “public option” at work. UPS and FedEx have to keep their prices down and service levels high or they lose business to the Post Office. Without that competition there would be little to stop them from raising their prices or reducing service. If it works with package delivery, not a life or death situation, why not with health care?
It’s true that there’s waste and inefficiency in government but it’s certainly not restricted to government. I’ve worked in the private sector most of my life and have seen plenty of waste and inefficiency there as well. Every year lots of businesses go under due to mismanagement so having the label of “private” by no means guarantees that an organization will be well run anymore than the label of “public” means it won’t.
I still find it shocking that Jared thinks that health care is “not a public good justifying government involvement.” In the preamble of the Constitution it states that one of its objectives is to “promote the general welfare.” It hardly makes sense to be in favor of protecting people’s welfare by keeping them safe from foreign armies and criminals (“cops, courts and colonels”) but letting them get sick and die from injury or disease. I can see a lot more justification in health care being a public good justifying government involvement than the post office, which was established by the Constitution.
As I’ve said in the past, I’m not an ideologue. If private health care worked as well as grocery stores I’d say leave it alone. But private health insurance has had decades to prove it can do the job best but greed got in the way. It.s time to give them some real competition, it’s time for the public health care option.
Larry Knapp, Kirkland
