The
old joke goes something like this:
What are the three most outrageous statements?
1) The check is in the mail,
2) I’ll respect you in the morning,
3) I’m from the government. I’m here to help.
What are the three most outrageous statements?
1) The check is in the mail,
2) I’ll respect you in the morning,
3) I’m from the government. I’m here to help.
The
inefficiency and waste of government has been talked about and joked about for ages but exactly
what do we mean when we talk about government inefficiency? There is
no better example than the Obama administration’s attempt to develop a health insurance website. The cost: $400,000,000.
Yes, that’s 400 million dollars for a website that barely functions and has serious
security problems. Why so much? Because the government is not
subject to competition. It does not have to worry about going out of business if they produce an inferior product. And
since they do not have to deal with competitive pressures, governments tend to be lax about productivity and cost controls.
On the other hand, here is a private health insurance website that works just fine:
Speaking
of ehealthinsurance, they are cited in the following Wall Street Journal
article that explains why insurance policies sold by the Affordable
Care Act’s exchanges are more expensive and offer fewer choices:
