Originally Posted by opelgt73
Is there anything that the government gets involved with that it does better (cheaper or higher quality) than the private sector?
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I suspect we could find one or two, if we open our eyes and stop taking our way of life for granted. I found the list below after a quick search.
1. The FAA. Crashes are a rarity here, thanks to equipment safety tests and massively successful air flight controlling.
2. Medicaid: private sector insurance companies make money by ditching their customers when they get very sick. Medicaid picks up the castoffs. Ask a very sick person which insurance they feel offers higher quality.
3. Social Security: What if Mr. Bush had succeeded in privatizing SS before the markets crashed? Can you imagine how many old people would be working at WalMart, since their SS would have been cut in half? And did you know that before SS, thousands of older Americans simply starved to death?
4. SCHIP: Healthcare insurance for children who would not otherwise have it – enormously preventive of school absence, long-term illness, loss of physical and mental development.
5. The CDC: How do we know that the virulence of H1N1 is less than expected? Who is telling the world that US pork is safe to eat? How do we know whether an illness is H1N1 or not? It’s all the CDC. It's certainly not coming from the private health care industry.
6. School hot lunch programs: For many children, their only serious nutrition all day every day. What industry would do it?
7. The Soil Conservation Service: though bureaucratic, there is no private industry comparable. How vastly different would America be without the wetlands your dad and a thousand like him have created.
8. Head Start: kids from homes that have seriously dysfunctional emotional and learning environments have benefited enormously.
9. The Department of Motor Vehicles: how many mistakes have you had on your car registrations or titles?
10. E911 commissions: how long does it take an ambulance or fire truck to reach you if a child who can call 911 can’t tell the operator an address?
11. ANY State University Hospitals and Clinics – this is where ground-breaking medical research occurs, NOT in the private sector.
12. Open meetings laws for city, county, and state government office – nothing like it at all in the private sector. But if public officials make decisions without notifying us, they can get in big trouble.
13. Free public libraries – which most nations simply don’t have. Not many private industries offer these.
And let us not forget perhaps the best example - the United States Postal Service. How often do they lose your mail? I've lost packages being shipped in the private sector, but NEVER with the USPS.