Solutions

I've been reading a recent editorial in USA TODAY about the competing approaches to Medicare reform. The editorial says that as deficient as Obama's plan is, it's still better than Ryan's plan.

Republicans are devoted to a holy trinity of tax cuts, deregulation, and privatization. Those are the GOP solutions to any problem you can name, and basically the entire Republican agenda whenever they have enough power to get something done.

So Paul Ryan's plan to save Medicare is basically to privatize it through a voucher system. I can't recall a case in which the privatization of a public service or government responsibility resulted in (A) improvement in service delivery, or (B) more effective execution of the responsibility, or (C) reducing the cost of execution/delivery.

My thinking is that the profit motives which drive activity in the private sector are incompatible with the goals of public service programs, or government functions such as conducting military operations. Blackwater's involvement in Iraq comes to mind, which caused me to decide that if the United States couldn't carry on a war without privatizing a big chunk of it, we probably didn't need to start a war in the first place.

At any rate, I'll be waiting for someone to prove me wrong by reminding me of all those times that privatizing public services improved the service and saved money, too.