Whenever someone says “With all due respect”, “Respectfully submitted”, etc. It’s always a precursor to some form of sarcasm or assholery. I’ve never actually seen it used sincerely. Thus, my bitterness spilled forth. My most sincere apologies if you were, in fact, submitting respectfully.

The thing I find most interesting is what our bad experiences left us thinking in the end.

Yeah, so anyhoo, rock on.

My respect “BS’ was a genuine attempt at civility inspired by a recent re-reading of the Federalist Papers and other associated letters. I find it remarkable that these great men were able to maintain that level of decorum in their correspondence about such important matters. I apologize if you found my tone to be other than courteous.

With regard to bidding, I have a fair amount of experience and expertise on this subject. First, I should probably say that I have entered this discussion under somewhat false colors. Despite my libertarian leanings, I am now and have been for the last 25 years, a government employee. In the last four years I have managed approximately $138 million in public works contracts. Bids for government contracts are as open and transparent as the people putting them together want them to be. While I personally make every effort to be certain that every bidder is able to understand and respond to bids, that is sadly not always the case. If we want to hide things or set the bids up so particular bidders win, it isn’t that difficult.

My experience in government service also provides me with a fair amount of experience regarding the elimination of programs. I would be happy to point out a number of government programs and agencies in the State of California that do little to nothing except create more unnecessary work for others. These programs are massively ineffectual and inefficient, yet they still exist. The fact that government programs in this country and others have not been eliminated is no proof of their quality or success.

Respectfully submitted, once again, for your consideration and comment.

Please do me the kind favor of naming a government program that was eliminated because of poor performance? The answer is it doesn’t happen. When government programs don’t work, the government throws more resources at them. It is never a bad idea or poorly executed, it was just under funded.

They morph or merge into other programs. My question still stands. I have not read about this happening at all, and I’ll bet that you haven’t either.

I have had the conversation you describe when my newborn son was in the neonatal intensive care unit. The sent me a $30,000 bill for 5 days because he wasn’t named on my policy before he was born, even though the terms of the policy clearly stated that newborns are covered for 30 days after delivery. It took me 18 months of fighting to get the issue resolved. As bad as that was, if it that fight had been with a government agency, I would have no chance of winning, and they could have used their police powers to enforce the decision.

So your 18 month long crappy experience with a public corporation led you to the conclusion that you were lucky it wasn’t the government. That’s great. My 4 month long nightmare led me to think, There is no way that the government could be worse than what I just went through. Our brains work differently. I can accept that.

With respect, do you really believe that handing this over to government is the way to get rid of services provided by the lowest bidder? How do you think they buy things

You think you’ve got me on this one. That’s why you pulled the “With respect” bullshit. But there is a major difference between lowest bidder with whatever hidden requirements and standards we deem necessary, and lowest bidder with open requirements and standards which are accessible to the people who are actually paying the bill. Something a public corporation would never ever do.

Hell, the current bureaucracy in the corporate insurance world is more than enough to pay for all the uninsured people in the US RIGHT NOW! Oh, but the government would be WAY worse than that, right?

“If nationalized health care is so bad, why has no country that I’ve ever about, gotten rid of it yet?”

Please do me the kind favor of naming a government program that was eliminated because of poor performance? The answer is it doesn’t happen. When government programs don’t work, the government throws more resources at them. It is never a bad idea or poorly executed, it was just under funded.

I have had the conversation you describe when my newborn son was in the neonatal intensive care unit. The sent me a $30,000 bill for 5 days because he wasn’t named on my policy before he was born, even though the terms of the policy clearly stated that newborns are covered for 30 days after delivery. It took me 18 months of fighting to get the issue resolved. As bad as that was, if it that fight had been with a government agency, I would have no chance of winning, and they could have used their police powers to enforce the decision.

With respect, do you really believe that handing this over to government is the way to get rid of services provided by the lowest bidder? How do you think they buy things

Respectfully submitted

The giant garbage dump in the Pacific. What a shame. h/t, Cons. Grapevine
Pelosi first heard of 9-11 attacks in late 2003. Scrappleface
Jail for not holding those filthy handrails? I thought they were there for the old folks.
How to land …

Well said. Obamacare is not ‘reform’ it’s just more of the same, down the slippery slope to socialized medicine which does NOT work. It costs too much for too little payback, and denies us choice, quality and innovation.

I’ve been reading a great deal about the possibilities with a nationalized health care system. Due to a couple of really really horrible personal experiences with the current system, I can say with great confidence that there simply must be a better way.

You try having a conversation with a disinterested third party at an insurance company who refuses to pay for tests on a loved one that the doctor deems necessary. You tell me how you feel after the lowest f’ing bidder tries to deny you services and you’re forced to mediate between the doctor and the insurance company. For services that you are paying for in your ridiculously enormous monthly premiums…

If nationalized health care is so bad, why has no country that I’ve ever read about, gotten rid of it yet? You’d think that if it denied us CHOICE, QUALITY, and INNOVATION, that these countries would have dropped it by now in favor of a better system. A system like the awesome one we have now.

Prove it.

What is your basis for concluding that the French health care system does not work?

The French have a slightly longer life expectancy than we do. The French people consistently rate their system highly. They pay far less as a percentage of GDP than we do. And they fill out no paperwork, never engage in death-bed struggles with insurance companies, and their doctors don’t have to hire full-time employees just to wrestle with insurance companies.

So on what basis do you reach the conclusion that their system does not work?

… but both are at huge cost. I wouldnt doubt that a private mercenary army could have the same force-multiplier as the DoD for less cost (eg more UAVs and less pork-spent systems, less bases in every congression district, etc.)

Similarly on launching payloads into space, some private companies managed to be much more innovative and low-cost than NASA.

We are willing to pay the price since there is no alternative when it comes to national security and even 4% of GDP is small price for our national security … but don’t pretent there isn’t a cost-adder for Government-run over market-based. There is, and it is huge.