4 ms·

And yet another is they don't have confidence in the public sector running it well.

danaris 7y ago
Because for at least the past 4 decades, one major political party has been running an enormous propaganda campaign to convince the country that "public sector" == "wasteful, inefficient, ineffective, and corrupt" and "private company" == "efficient market-driven utopia". They've been so successful, they've even convinced themselves—so much so that every time actual evidence to the contrary is presented, they pretend it doesn't exist and try to make everyone else do the same.
- rayiner 7y ago
  That, along with peoples’ actual experiences with their government. The NYC MTA is better funded than London’s or Paris’s transit systems, yet has on the brink of system failure. Amtrak is similarly funded (adjusted for differences in passenger volume) to European rail systems. Yet it offers decrepit equipment and unreliable service. We spend more per student on education than all but a couple of other countries (like Switzerland), but our test scores are at the bottom of the pack. American cities like Baltimore and San Francisco are full of crime, homelessness, and drug use, even though they’ve been controlled by “the other major party” for decades. It should also be noted that, with the notable exception of healthcare, most of Western Europe has followed the trend of privatization, deregulation, and reliance on market mechanisms. Macron is talking about privatizing SNCF—not even Trump is talking about privatizing Amtrak.
  - enraged_camel 7y ago
    You are being disingenuous. Why don't you look at government-run programs in the actual sector we are discussing? Medicare and VA healthcare programs are both well-run and immensely popular among their recipients. They aren't without problems, but looking at them objectively should dispel any notion that "the government cannot run healthcare efficiently and effectively."
    - kodablah 7y ago
      > They aren't without problems, but looking at them objectively should dispel any notion that "the government cannot run healthcare efficiently and effectively." I think that wouldn't dispel the notion that "the government cannot regulate healthcare efficiently and effectively". Unless you expect all hospitals and doctors to be direct employees of the government, you need to look at how they regulate the sector, they won't be running it. I shouldn't have used "running" in my original comment as it implied more direct control than would be the case.
      - sitkack 7y ago
        That is exactly how it works now. While VA hospitals do exist, there are no Medicare hospitals.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    Amtrak is already privatized (in the USPS model). If it were any more privatized it would be bankrupt and nobody would be providing the service. If someone were trying to compete with Amtrak, the country is ripe with old, falling apart cargo-only rails that haven't seen passengers in a century or longer. (It would also probably cost a fraction of what Musk, et al have thrown into silly pie-in-the-sky fantasies like the "hyper-loop" to old fashioned public transport planning with existing, proven modern technologies such as Japanese "bullet" train tech.) I think I agree with upthread. Probably more than anything what America needs in public transport is good propaganda again. There was a time that civic responsibility saw public transport as a public good to connect cities and Americans and make dreams happen. (Old 19th Century train ads were things of beauty.) The "American Dream" probably needs to shake its collective love affair with the automobile before anything real could be done for good, trustworthy public transport.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      Amtrak isn’t at all privatized. It’s a government owned corporation. Not only that, it’s operated by the government. It cannot for example stop servicing unprofitable routes without Congressional approval. (USPS isn’t privatized either.)
      - WorldMaker 7y ago
        "Government Owned Corporation" is still way more privatized than predecessor versions that were directly public entities. The point, if it flew past, by directly comparing it to the USPS, is that privatization is not a binary, but a spectrum. To reiterate further, Amtrak is as far further down the privatization spectrum already than is good for it. The USPS generally has sometimes had annual profits (from which Congress can skim), so it mostly will continue to operate, but is in the worst of both worlds situation where it has rarely ever had a chance to reinvest its own profits back into itself. But Congress has an incentive to keep USPS running mostly smoothly because they wouldn't have profits to skim without it. Amtrak has the exact same worst of both worlds situation without even the excuse of occasional profit, so it shares all of the control from Congress, but none of the responsibilities of any attempt at good stewardship from Congress because it's nothing but a "cost center" on the federal books, but also "someone else's problem" because shouldn't it be the Amtrak corporate board making good decisions and leaving Congress to focus on stuff that matters? Further privatizing Amtrak doesn't make any sense, because the current worst of both worlds privatization has already mostly killed Amtrak. Further privatizing Amtrak is just gifting on a silver platter some private equity firm (vulture capitalists) a far too cheap leveraged buy-out and eventual hugely profitable to the equity firm and hugely expensive to the American people Amtrak bankruptcy and break up into a lot of little parts. Probably would mean the entire end of passenger rail travel in the country, because our lazy cargo train operators would love nothing more than such an easy bit of extra free margin in their operating schedules.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - tptacek 7y ago
    How do American test scores shake out if you compare like-for-like with SES factored in?
- kodablah 7y ago
  That may be one minor reason of many, that may not. But this speculation that peoples' beliefs, such as my own, are propaganda driven needs to stop being presented as objective. Many people have statistical and empirical evidence to support their beliefs especially concerning issues such as health policy/regulation. When you disagree, those you disagree with are not automatically swayed by propaganda any more than your beliefs of the significant PR effects are propaganda-based themselves.
  - yourbandsucks 7y ago
    Medicare, Medicaid and the VA manage to be cheaper per capita despite specifically insuring the old, the poor, and veterans. What's your statistical and empirical reasoning and why should we ignore that elephant of a top line number?
    - gamblor956 7y ago
      There isn't any. Not a single private health plan manages to be more cost-effective than the 3 government health plans, despite private health plans having the ability to pick-and-choose the cream of the crop and to offload unprofitable customers to government health plans. BUT (when they actually provide health care) private health plans usually provide health care faster than government health plans. VA wait times, for example, still exceed 12 months in many parts of the country.
      - FireBeyond 7y ago
        > BUT (when they actually provide health care) private health plans usually provide health care faster than government health plans. VA wait times, for example, still exceed 12 months in many parts of the country. I had a severe wrist injury from a car accident. I was told to start PT "ASAP", and given referrals within 24 hours of the injury. I was then told that I'd be waiting 10-12 weeks for a PT slot.

Because for at least the past 4 decades, one major political party has been running an enormous propaganda campaign to convince the country that "public sector" == "wasteful, inefficient, ineffective, and corrupt" and "private company" == "efficient market-driven utopia". They've been so successful, they've even convinced themselves—so much so that every time actual evidence to the contrary is presented, they pretend it doesn't exist and try to make everyone else do the same.

rayiner 7y ago
That, along with peoples’ actual experiences with their government. The NYC MTA is better funded than London’s or Paris’s transit systems, yet has on the brink of system failure. Amtrak is similarly funded (adjusted for differences in passenger volume) to European rail systems. Yet it offers decrepit equipment and unreliable service. We spend more per student on education than all but a couple of other countries (like Switzerland), but our test scores are at the bottom of the pack. American cities like Baltimore and San Francisco are full of crime, homelessness, and drug use, even though they’ve been controlled by “the other major party” for decades. It should also be noted that, with the notable exception of healthcare, most of Western Europe has followed the trend of privatization, deregulation, and reliance on market mechanisms. Macron is talking about privatizing SNCF—not even Trump is talking about privatizing Amtrak.
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  You are being disingenuous. Why don't you look at government-run programs in the actual sector we are discussing? Medicare and VA healthcare programs are both well-run and immensely popular among their recipients. They aren't without problems, but looking at them objectively should dispel any notion that "the government cannot run healthcare efficiently and effectively."
  - kodablah 7y ago
    > They aren't without problems, but looking at them objectively should dispel any notion that "the government cannot run healthcare efficiently and effectively." I think that wouldn't dispel the notion that "the government cannot regulate healthcare efficiently and effectively". Unless you expect all hospitals and doctors to be direct employees of the government, you need to look at how they regulate the sector, they won't be running it. I shouldn't have used "running" in my original comment as it implied more direct control than would be the case.
    - sitkack 7y ago
      That is exactly how it works now. While VA hospitals do exist, there are no Medicare hospitals.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Amtrak is already privatized (in the USPS model). If it were any more privatized it would be bankrupt and nobody would be providing the service. If someone were trying to compete with Amtrak, the country is ripe with old, falling apart cargo-only rails that haven't seen passengers in a century or longer. (It would also probably cost a fraction of what Musk, et al have thrown into silly pie-in-the-sky fantasies like the "hyper-loop" to old fashioned public transport planning with existing, proven modern technologies such as Japanese "bullet" train tech.) I think I agree with upthread. Probably more than anything what America needs in public transport is good propaganda again. There was a time that civic responsibility saw public transport as a public good to connect cities and Americans and make dreams happen. (Old 19th Century train ads were things of beauty.) The "American Dream" probably needs to shake its collective love affair with the automobile before anything real could be done for good, trustworthy public transport.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Amtrak isn’t at all privatized. It’s a government owned corporation. Not only that, it’s operated by the government. It cannot for example stop servicing unprofitable routes without Congressional approval. (USPS isn’t privatized either.)
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      "Government Owned Corporation" is still way more privatized than predecessor versions that were directly public entities. The point, if it flew past, by directly comparing it to the USPS, is that privatization is not a binary, but a spectrum. To reiterate further, Amtrak is as far further down the privatization spectrum already than is good for it. The USPS generally has sometimes had annual profits (from which Congress can skim), so it mostly will continue to operate, but is in the worst of both worlds situation where it has rarely ever had a chance to reinvest its own profits back into itself. But Congress has an incentive to keep USPS running mostly smoothly because they wouldn't have profits to skim without it. Amtrak has the exact same worst of both worlds situation without even the excuse of occasional profit, so it shares all of the control from Congress, but none of the responsibilities of any attempt at good stewardship from Congress because it's nothing but a "cost center" on the federal books, but also "someone else's problem" because shouldn't it be the Amtrak corporate board making good decisions and leaving Congress to focus on stuff that matters? Further privatizing Amtrak doesn't make any sense, because the current worst of both worlds privatization has already mostly killed Amtrak. Further privatizing Amtrak is just gifting on a silver platter some private equity firm (vulture capitalists) a far too cheap leveraged buy-out and eventual hugely profitable to the equity firm and hugely expensive to the American people Amtrak bankruptcy and break up into a lot of little parts. Probably would mean the entire end of passenger rail travel in the country, because our lazy cargo train operators would love nothing more than such an easy bit of extra free margin in their operating schedules.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- tptacek 7y ago
  How do American test scores shake out if you compare like-for-like with SES factored in?
kodablah 7y ago
That may be one minor reason of many, that may not. But this speculation that peoples' beliefs, such as my own, are propaganda driven needs to stop being presented as objective. Many people have statistical and empirical evidence to support their beliefs especially concerning issues such as health policy/regulation. When you disagree, those you disagree with are not automatically swayed by propaganda any more than your beliefs of the significant PR effects are propaganda-based themselves.
- yourbandsucks 7y ago
  Medicare, Medicaid and the VA manage to be cheaper per capita despite specifically insuring the old, the poor, and veterans. What's your statistical and empirical reasoning and why should we ignore that elephant of a top line number?
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    There isn't any. Not a single private health plan manages to be more cost-effective than the 3 government health plans, despite private health plans having the ability to pick-and-choose the cream of the crop and to offload unprofitable customers to government health plans. BUT (when they actually provide health care) private health plans usually provide health care faster than government health plans. VA wait times, for example, still exceed 12 months in many parts of the country.
    - FireBeyond 7y ago
      > BUT (when they actually provide health care) private health plans usually provide health care faster than government health plans. VA wait times, for example, still exceed 12 months in many parts of the country. I had a severe wrist injury from a car accident. I was told to start PT "ASAP", and given referrals within 24 hours of the injury. I was then told that I'd be waiting 10-12 weeks for a PT slot.