I think private insurers should be able to compete. They do it all the time. I mean, if you think about — if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.
Oops, messed up on that.
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GregAllen, I’ve also used the USPS a lot. I haven’t had anything lost in years, but then I stopped using it for anything important,because they lost2 things several years ago. One CD arrived months late shredded. And the delivery confirmation that I got said nothing more than I dropped it off at the Post Office.
Then another time I shipped a priority mail package and it arrived 23 days later. That was probably out of 50 items shipped.
MikeN,
Fair enough.
(I have a vague memory of getting a crushed box from UPS, out of about maybe 100 times.)
_I_ prefer having a “government option” in shipping and _you_ prefer private.
I’d like to have that same “government option” in health insurance but conservatives are hell-bent on not allowing me that.
But the analogy runs-out at this point.
If you have a pre-existing condition… _NO_ private insurer will take you and no doctor will treat you once your money quickly runs out.
But, even in that scenario, the conservatives are damn-set that you should have NO OPTIONS.
Well, the conservative “option” is cronic illness leading to financial disaster, followed by a preventable death leaving a destitute grieving family.
It makes a shredded CD a pretty weak analogy!
I am really surprised that Obama said this. One thing I have learned is that people will go to great lengths when they are really trying to prove their point – even say things that go against their main points when they are trying to prove a sub-sub-point. I have seen this time and time again.
Considering the USPS in the debate about the potential for government being able to successful control health care costs is an interesting one. I think the USPS actually extremely efficient for a government agency. The details are in what ‘efficient’ means. What the USPS is really lacking in is being able to break even and deliver good service.
What they do well is provide delivery at a low cost and process a huge amount of pieces per office every week. They are probably one of the only government agencies that actually keeps the employees busy. But their cost structure and resource allocation prevent them from capitalizing on their efficiencies and no matter how much they raise prices, they still lose money.
When I go to the post office, the average wait time is over 30 minutes. No private company could stay in business if they offered service like this. It does no good if the public option has an agency that is efficient in terms of cost per transaction and throughput, but ends up still losing money because of mismanagement and the inability to make tough cuts AND delivers an end user experience so abysmal that people want to go somewhere else and pay more to avoid dealing with them.
>>pedro said, on August 16th, 2009 at 6:44 am
>> #39 Saying it’s doing worse than its competitors is not saying failure? Where in the world?
Please dont’ take this wrong Pedre you seem to be lying again.
At what point in the clip does Obama say USPS is worse than it’s competitors?
Occasional mis-quotes and mis-representaions are understandable but when I listen to conservative media or debate with conservatives THEY CONSISTENTLY MIS-REPRESENT liberal positions, satements and beliefs.
This can’t be an accident — it’s intentional; AKA a lie.
>> aslightlycrankygeek
>> When I go to the post office, the average wait time is over 30 minutes.
Is this another conservative lie? (I’ll concede that maybe you go once-a-year at Christmas)
I ask because this is not my experience.
I’d guess that 30 minutes is the LONGEST I wait in the post office, during a Christmas rush. (I’ll admit that it SEEMED like 3 hours.)
Are you truthfully claiming that you sometimes wait there one or two hours to average-out the sometimes two or five minute waits?
In my experience, the lines at the post office are that same as “for profit” lines at Walmart or where ever.
If I hit it at the slow times, there may be a couple people in front of me, if I hit the rush times it can be much longer.
When I went to FedEx recently, after having to driven MUCH further than two local post office branches, there where several customers milling around and nobody at the counter. Finally, a clerk meandered in and S L L O O W W L L Y Y helped us. It felt like I stood there three hours. (but, honestly, it was probably 15 minutes.)
Do you HONESTLY believe that if FedEx or Walmart bought the postal system, they would have a small army of clerks there, assuring that there are never any lines? My guess is that they would do just like Walmart … as soon as the lines start getting reasonable, they close lanes to maximize profits. They’d be derelict in their corporate responsibilities to NOT have as long a line as the customers will tolerate.
#41 GregAllen,
From my observations lost mail seems to be completely dependent on your local post office and carrier. I used to never get lost mail, and then I moved and have had almost pieces of mail lost in the last year. The first time it happened I thought the person who claimed the letter was not received was lying. Then I started not receiving things and people told me they weren’t receiving my letters.
I can see how it would seem unlikely if it has not happened to you, but it does not logically equate to your conclusion about conservatives lying.
#47 GregAllen,
Again, it totally depends on the post office. In college there were times where I could walk into the post office and have no wait, and the longest wait I saw was about 15 minutes. Other post offices in my city have low waits, but the ones near me have waits between 10 and 45 minutes, and it is usually near the higher end.
I am sure for you everything in life can be explained by conservatives lying, but statements like that just make yourself look like you cannot see reality through your own prejudices. I am a libertarian and my conservative friends do not agree with me when I complain about the post office. I also think they contribute my lost letters to me misplacing them, but I do not then make the leap that all conservatives love the post office.
#44
You make the point I was about to make:
Conservatives (more accurately, open market Liberals) are all too happy to bypass the Social Cost of things. If the People is not entitled to basic standards of living: health, safety, justice, the end result will inevitably be a chaotic society, less equal and less democratic and with less actual freedom.
And as any economist will tell you, without democracy and freedom, there is no Capitalism. No open Market. No growth.
The recent unbridled predatory episode of capitalism that brought down the Economy should have taught something to some people, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
#26
Actually, the majority of public schools at the elementary through HS level are awful. If having everyone educated is the goal, then vouchers would be a better way. Government in general works best when it sets standards rather than try to directly implement or manage standards.
So, if public schools is your example, it is more of an argument for private insurance.
> Should we also have private cops
> , and private courts, to take
> the load off the taxpayer paid
> Law Enforcement system?
We do; they are called private investigators and private security firms and if you want any crime other than a felony to actually be investigated your only recourse is to do it yourself or hire a PI. Any cop will tell you that if your home is burglerized, your hope of ever seeing any of your stuff is pretty much zero.
Privitizing courts of course are silly. We want accuracy and justice from our court system over efficiency.
#34
> There’s a reason to have
a public sector, and there’s
> always opportunity to be
> taken by the Private sector.
That is a completely different argument than to claim that the PS is efficient. Arguing that it should be a public utility is fine but don’t claim it to be efficient. Health care cost coverage (HCCC) (which is really what the current bills are about, not Health Care) does not fit into the same category and is far more complicated and far more expensive than whether anyone should have access to mail letters.
This is something I mentioned from a previous post:
There is a telling statement in this report:
http://gao.gov/new.items/d09937sp.pdf
” USPS has not been able to cut costs fast enough to offset the
accelerated decline in mail volume and revenue—particularly costs related to its
workforce, retail and processing networks, and delivery services”
This is classic evidence of government inefficiency. A government system cannot react to changing market conditions nearly as quickly as private enterprise. Thus, they languish for years in losses until something is done eventually. There could not be a better example of why centrally managed systems are less efficient than market systems.
For some of you idiots, that have brought this up..
THERE ARE/WERE REGULATIONS.
THERE WAS enough people to regulate them..
In the last 20 years..
Kick backs, payoffs, and Blatant NOT DOING THEIR JOB.
Cuts in government.
The corps POUNDING on the gov to drop regulations.
“we can regulate ourselves” “we compete on the market”
Lets look at this.
1 person controls 4 companies giving insurance.
He holds the cards.
The MAIN company has the best coverage and services.
Company 2 has good coverage and alittle cheaper.
company 3 has service, and is cheaper.
Company 4 is crap and contests everything, and is EVEN CHEAPER.
The person on top REGULATES prices, and pushes them up and down, as he wants EACH of his companies to gain or loose stock price, so that he can gain MONEY.
The person on top, OWNs the companies but doesnt RUN them, except to tell them what to do.
THINK about what this person could do.
He shows he is competitive.
He shows he has competition.
He shows he can make money.
AND when one company MAKES the money he shows the OTHER LOST..so he pays only a small amount in TAX. He made his money on the market, controlling his companies..
This is like playing CARDS in Vegas..DEALER wins 90% of the time.
I think the win goes to Greg at #41==when free market capitalist choose the USPS as the core of their business model, what more CONCLUSIVE proof is there?
CONCLUSIVE–ie, not countered by cutsies like “open market liberals” a self parody no doubt?
Why won’t you open market liberals allow 99% of us the government option?
Why, why WHY????? We all know the answer.
#56
You are arguing a strawman by ignoring the entire picture of their efficiency. How well the PO delivers mail is not where you should be looking. Are they, as an organization, run cost effectively? Are they able to adapt to market changes quickly? Are they profitable? (Even non-profit organizations strive for profit. The only difference is that all profits are reinvested back into the organization for R&D, improve infrastructure etc.)
The answer is clearly no. They are perennially short of money and have been slow to adapt.
Of course, private businesses are going to leverage the PO because the government is artificially lowering the price and thus for individual businesses it is in their self-interest to take advantage of it. That does not mean that the overall economics of resource distribution works out evenly as the public bears the cost for an organization they use less every year.
what they dont tell you about ups and fed ex is that alot of there workers are pare time and they dont recieve insurance. people are saying that the usps mail carriers loses mail but you be surprised on how many people forget to put an apartment number on the mail, which is very important. so the maill isnt lost its sent back because alot of people have the same last names and we dont want to put the mail in the wrong mailbox