[sherpahigh]

The public sector has problems of its own, but it's wrong to assume that competition is some kind of magic lever that continually hones business efficiency. In fact, businesses change very little on an ongoing basis. They buy new software, they work with new products and services, and their payrolls shrink and swell, but they are remarkably resistant to real change.

This is especially true of larger companies, it seems. But smaller companies can have their own problems, like good old family nepotism in family-owned companies.

To assume that competition in the private sector will produce lower costs than you would see in the public sector is simply wrong. The rule does not always hold. You have to look at the individual case.

I disagree with you about competition. If a company becomes static and inefficent, changes will come or the company will loose its competitive edge, loose market share and become irrelevant.

I don't believe your point about small family run businesses and nepotism holds water either. First of all, it is completely within an owners right to do whatever they may wish with their company in regards to control. Secondly, it is not it the company's best interest to issue control to anyone, family or not, if they are not capable of handling it. Nepotism in public companies is a different monster however.

Also, if you think that nepotism and cronyism do not exist within government then you are very naive.

Having said all of that, I don't believe that the answer to our health care problems lies in a completely privatized system. The government is required to ensure that everyone has access to a basic level of health care. I do believe however that a certain level of privatization within the health care system will benefit the entire system. I don't pretend to have all of the answers, but the answer is clearly, at least in my mind, not to continue pumping funds into a broken system indefinitely.