Pendulum swings
In today's NY Times, Paul Krugman writes of the "Emerging Republican Minority." [Behind subscription wall] There he explains that the public is growing more liberal while the Republicans are growing more conservative. In particular, he explains that the public is now favoring larger government to get things done, while the Republicans believe they lost in 2006 because they didn't push small government enough.
I tend to think Krugman is right -- at least in the short-term. People have seen government services privatized and services that should be run by the government run privately, and they see they don't work. At least, not without oversight. Just this morning, the Times ran a front page article on how long-term care insurance companies (principally Conseco and its subs) just refuse to pay claims when their clients check in to assisted living facilities. In one case, the client was told first that she was too late for coverage, then they told her the nursing home wasn't "approved" even though it was licensed by the State, finally they told her she was too well for assisted living even though she had early stage dementia and took 37 pills a day.
A couple of days ago Blue Cross of California was fined $1 million for falsely cancelling insurance policies once claims were filed (typically for alleged misstatements on applications made years before). The insurance inspectors examined 90 randomly selected policy cancellations, out of about 1,000 a year in California, and found violations in each one. That's one hundred percent of the sample. Projecting that to the whole population of cancellations suggests that every cancellation was fraudulent. The $1 million fine is probably small change compared to the savings Blue Cross gained through the cancellations.
To a large degree, the hostility to large government developed because people had to deal with huge, inefficient government bureaucracies, run by snotty, rude people who seemed to believe the agency was there for their benefit, not for the benefit of the public. Credit cards or checks were never accepted (think of the Post Office, the subway ticket booth, the Marriage License bureau, the Division of Motor Vehicles, paying traffic fines). Forms were complicated and often incomprehensible. Lines were long. Delays were the norm.
For most of us, those inconveniences are now a thing of the past when we deal with most government agencies. The Post Office and the subway and even the Courts accept Master Charge (or Visa or Discover or even American Express). Here in New Jersey, the DMV is still not a pleasant place, but the staff are friendly and helpful (at least at the branch in Orange) and try their best to make things work. Further most of us have very little direct dealings with the government since so much has now been privatized. Hence, there's little to point the finger at to complain about anymore. [Of course, if you're a resident alien trying to deal with the INS, you're likely to have had an entirely different experience with our government. I suppose I should also include Katrina victims with the resident aliens in this.]
The main remaining source of discontent with the government tends to be the IRS. Let's face it, nobody likes to be taxed if they can get the other guy to pick up the tab, and the complicated structure of the tax system is not (exclusively) the fault of the IRS. Congress designed this atrocity.
So, with the government largely out of the picture these days, there's little to dislike about government services. Indeed, the Conservatives were too successful. They took the government out of our lives, and now we don't dislike it anymore.
For a time, I suspect the pendulum will swing in the direction of larger government. Perhaps we will get universal health insurance (although that's a giant leap for Americankind). But, if we are successful, our success like that of the Conservatives will tend to breed its own destruction. Once we have to deal with government on a routine basis, we will start to find things to complain about, and the government will once again become the butt of those complaints.
In the meantime though, let's relish our success.
I tend to think Krugman is right -- at least in the short-term. People have seen government services privatized and services that should be run by the government run privately, and they see they don't work. At least, not without oversight. Just this morning, the Times ran a front page article on how long-term care insurance companies (principally Conseco and its subs) just refuse to pay claims when their clients check in to assisted living facilities. In one case, the client was told first that she was too late for coverage, then they told her the nursing home wasn't "approved" even though it was licensed by the State, finally they told her she was too well for assisted living even though she had early stage dementia and took 37 pills a day.
A couple of days ago Blue Cross of California was fined $1 million for falsely cancelling insurance policies once claims were filed (typically for alleged misstatements on applications made years before). The insurance inspectors examined 90 randomly selected policy cancellations, out of about 1,000 a year in California, and found violations in each one. That's one hundred percent of the sample. Projecting that to the whole population of cancellations suggests that every cancellation was fraudulent. The $1 million fine is probably small change compared to the savings Blue Cross gained through the cancellations.
To a large degree, the hostility to large government developed because people had to deal with huge, inefficient government bureaucracies, run by snotty, rude people who seemed to believe the agency was there for their benefit, not for the benefit of the public. Credit cards or checks were never accepted (think of the Post Office, the subway ticket booth, the Marriage License bureau, the Division of Motor Vehicles, paying traffic fines). Forms were complicated and often incomprehensible. Lines were long. Delays were the norm.
For most of us, those inconveniences are now a thing of the past when we deal with most government agencies. The Post Office and the subway and even the Courts accept Master Charge (or Visa or Discover or even American Express). Here in New Jersey, the DMV is still not a pleasant place, but the staff are friendly and helpful (at least at the branch in Orange) and try their best to make things work. Further most of us have very little direct dealings with the government since so much has now been privatized. Hence, there's little to point the finger at to complain about anymore. [Of course, if you're a resident alien trying to deal with the INS, you're likely to have had an entirely different experience with our government. I suppose I should also include Katrina victims with the resident aliens in this.]
The main remaining source of discontent with the government tends to be the IRS. Let's face it, nobody likes to be taxed if they can get the other guy to pick up the tab, and the complicated structure of the tax system is not (exclusively) the fault of the IRS. Congress designed this atrocity.
So, with the government largely out of the picture these days, there's little to dislike about government services. Indeed, the Conservatives were too successful. They took the government out of our lives, and now we don't dislike it anymore.
For a time, I suspect the pendulum will swing in the direction of larger government. Perhaps we will get universal health insurance (although that's a giant leap for Americankind). But, if we are successful, our success like that of the Conservatives will tend to breed its own destruction. Once we have to deal with government on a routine basis, we will start to find things to complain about, and the government will once again become the butt of those complaints.
In the meantime though, let's relish our success.
posted by walldon | 8:51 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home