Good Government

My regular readers have often heard me make the case for good government. One of them sent me to a site where that is the main topic.

Government is Good

I’ve been slowly working my way around the site -- it has a lot of information on it -- and I bumped into a section that really hit home for me.

The Case FOR Bureaucracy

”In Massachusetts alone, Blue Cross/Blue Shield employs 6682 workers to cover 2.7 million subscribers. This is more people than work in all of Canada’s provincial health care plans, which cover over 25 million people.”

That makes a powerful case for national health care insurance. But that isn’t my forte. This is.

”Myth No. 3: We Want the Government to Act Like a Business “

”Conservatives are constantly saying that we would all be better off if government were run like a business. But would we? Businesses are obsessed with their bottom lines and are always looking for the cheapest way to make a product or deliver a service. But in many cases, we don’t want government services to be as cheap as possible. Often, with government, the main concern is the quality of the service, not its costs. For example, do we really want to spend the least amount of money possible on our air traffic control system? Obviously not – the main goal should be maximizing the safety of the aviation system.”

I always thought it was obvious. It’s nice to see that somebody else does too. The thought of a bankrupt ATC system isn’t really very comforting is it ?

Don Brown
December 18, 2007