Private vs government-run agencies: Either can fail in service delivery

[caption id="attachment_22101" align="alignleft" width="391"] United Parcel Service[/caption]

Gordon Matilla----While many people complained about the rollout of the Affordable Care Act's health care options and fault President Barack Obama and the Democrats for the inefficiency and errors that were dramatically displayed in the government website, the United Parcel Service is presently criticized for its delays in shipping Christmas gifts. One is a government program; the other privately managed.  It simply might mean that corporations and agencies must be individually evaluated for efficiency as opposed to criticizing one or the other as faulty or favored.

Many people complain about too much government and maintain that privately-run corporations can do a far better job at managing the affairs of business, and even social service and mental health programs.  On the other hand, across the board there have been examples of private companies failing in their attempts to provide services, just as government agencies sometimes fail as well.  The difference, however, is many in the private sector have had less oversight and therefore more likelihood of failure.

An example are the privately-run prisons.  Experts contend prisons managed by private corporations not only aren't necessarily more efficient in delivering services, often they exhibit poor management and poor outcomes related to treatment and recidivism.  In addition, many times the prisons themselves exhibit poor conditions and sometimes less qualified staff than those that are state or federally managed.  In fact some say that the promises made by private corporations seem to be like so much "fairy dust."

Criticisms should be given those who fail regardless of whether they are corporation or government managed, as experience has shown it is the individual situation or event that should be assessed as opposed to making generalizations about whether one way is right or not.  The post office may have its problems, but perhaps they did just as well delivering merchandise as UPS, or at least tried just as hard to get those gifts to the recipients as early as possible.