It looks obvious

“Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” — Albert Einstein

The incentive of being inefficient

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Like every legal immigrant in the US I had to settle my residentship through the INS. And although my case was simple, easy and had no complication at all, it took more than 3 years, and many wasted hours standing in lines, until I got my Green Card. I even had the pleasure to hold an official card with the name Temporary Permanent Resident, which seems to be fine English to the people that issue it.

But after reading this it start to make sense:

Last June, U.S. immigration officials were presented a plan that supporters said could help slash waiting times for green cards from nearly three years to three months and save 1 million applicants more than a third of the 45 hours they could expect to spend in government lines.

It would also save about $350 million.

The response? No thanks.

Leaders of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services rejected key changes because ending huge immigration backlogs nationwide would rob the agency of application and renewal fees that cover 20 percent of its $1.8 billion budget, according to the plan’s author, agency ombudsman Prakash Khatri.

Current and former immigration officials dispute that, saying Khatri’s plan, based on a successful pilot program in Dallas, would be unmanageable if expanded nationwide. Still, they acknowledge financial problems and say that modernization efforts have been delayed since 1999 by money shortages, inertia, increased security demands after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the disruptive launch of the Homeland Security Department.

I’m not so convinced with the official explanation since most of my application was prior to September 11, 2001, and for the small reason that Muhamed Atta got his Visa faster, and before, me. The fact that it is a bad business for a government agency to become more efficient, unlike any private company, should set as an example for how the health care system will look if we will let Clinton/Obama/Edwards to convince us that government can manage it better than the private sector.

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Written by Rogel

May 29th, 2007 at 6:05 pm

Posted in Government and its infinite wisdom

« Newspeak, Campaign style
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Viewing 6 Comments

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    Rogel, I don't think this is related to which party gets in government. Have you ever seen Yes Minister or the Yes Prime Minister series? In it, the professional bureaucrat exclaims to the Minister's secretary.. "Bernard, Bernard! Prime Ministers come and go but the bureaucracy is here to stay FOREVER!" (get it on dvd if you can, it's quite hilarious, it's a British comedy that poked fun at government but in a way that people all over the world can relate too, even Margaret Thatcher liked it)
    Anyhow, it took years for me as well to get my green card but that was also because we moved several times and 'it' (the application) got put somewhere they did not know, they had to find it. When we moved to Austin Texas, that's where the San Antonio INS office processed me and in a few weeks' time, I got it! It apparently is one of the most efficient INS offices in the country. Of course being a border state, they have no interest in creating more backlog than necessary. Money is always at the root of every gov't agency anywhere in the world. If an agency does not use up all their money that was put in a budget, than it is assumed 'higher up' that they do not need it. Hence, the agencies will pad their budgets just to make sure they have 'enough' money..
    There are ways to have an efficient system, it's just a matter of political will and logic.. (I know, that is funny isn't it!!??)
    btw.. am working on the 'tag'!
    Ingrid
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    You already know what I'm going to say… but, (at least in Western democracies) almost every government health program seems better that the American, so called, private system. Health care seems to produce endless arrays of "market failures". Private health care is associated with low access, poor insurance coverage, and selective investment across various medical needs. This is no "side effect" of private health care, but a basic characteristic originating from the fact that some of the sick are not profitable, and some of the sicknesses are not profitable either. No one will ever make money from a poor man's cancer. Perhaps is time Americans realized that some things (like health care) are worthy even if they are not profitable (according to, so called, markets).
    And, a poorly run government agency is no example to the "failures of government". It is just a poorly run government agency… Examples of poorly run businesses are abundant.
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    Ingrid - your argument that the INS inefficiency isn't the particular fault of one of the parties is correct. However the leading democratic candidates promising to increase the public sector by , in fact, nationalizing the health care system.
    Zoolish - Yes I knew that you going to say that. What you conveniently ignore is that under the nationalized health care system we will have to pay more for these "unprofitable" illnesses than if we would let private companies make profit. The fact is that health care cost was much chipper, in the US, before our "good doers" start fixing it :). I am no expert on what is going on in Europe but a friend of mine who live in Oxford has different observations than your. She told me that she has less access to preventing procedures than she used to have as a teacher in NY. For some reason I'm not surprised.
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    Don't want to offend, but the phrase "Ignorance is bliss" comes to mind…
    I will, just because of my own "convenience", not treat your friend as a representative sample of the British population, and point out that according to the World Health Organization YOU (for my convenience I will treat you as male) will (at average) have an additional two years life expectancy living in the UK (your wife will have another year, and will outlive you by 4 years anyways), your children will have a greater change of surviving past the age of 5 (infant and children mortality rate in the USA is 33% higher than in the UK) your family will all have a greater chance of surviving the old age of 60 (roughly the same percentages as those regarding death before the age of 5). All this, with the UK expenditure on health (measured as a percentage of the GDP) being almost half that of the USA (8.1 in the UK and 15.4 in the USA). All in all, there seems to be no parameter known to man in which the American health system is considered superior to the British, while at the same time, the British system is considered far worse that most Western European health systems (the British have consistently been dumb enough to learn from the Americans…). While in most health criteria the American system is in line with other OECD countries – it does so at nearly DOUBLE the cost. Don’t economists refer to such things as inefficiency?
    Add to that that there's NO pure-market health-system functioning in the world today… that should, at least, raise some doubt to the ability of such a system to exist and produce desired effects, no?
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    Zoolish - you bring your statistics and I'll bring mine :) the fact is that the data doesn't provide a clear cut observation and as many argue, me included, the health care level in the US was better when it was less regulated. The only thing that I can learn from the fact that "there's No pure-market health-system" is that we have a lot of room for improvment. The fact that political systems aren't likely to release power doesn't make it right.

    It isn't health care, or violance broadcasts or collecting bio-metric data from Internet users but the right of the government to use force. Or in other words:

    The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.
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    What you bring isn't statistics (I think that there's no one in the academic world that claims the world health's data is inaccurate…) ... it's just a study claiming that US government isn't doing a good job. That only means that government should improve.   And, there's not a single country run according to Mill's "pure" statement. Most modern political thinkers believe that states should provide a minimal welfare safety net which includes much more than protection from the simple interpretation of "physical" harm… In fact, it is rarely understood as a contradiction to Mill, as "harm" is bestowed upon us in various manners. Lack of education, health, finance, political rights… all these constitute harm no less than a slap on the wrist… In fact, health, again, is a great example. Without public health measures, there's no known way to control (or limit) infectious disease. Ebola, HIV, tuberculosis… all these may be far more dangerous if not monitored that, say, Bin Laden… or any of the other so called threats Republican's have no problem killing other people for… ... and, no market "force" has yet to fill this role...

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