So I will just C&P what I said there: We have the right, responsibility and dire need of far more public oversight and accountability. It is all well to say "AUDIT THE FED111" but any such audit is pointless with no more public scrutiny than the CBO, OMB or GAO get. Complaining about how ones tax money is spent without KNOWING how is as idiotic as complaining about how one is represented without voting. Participatory democracy is ultimately a redundant phrase; unless it is participatory, it is not democracy.

I will also add that government does not "like" bureaucracy; it is a necessary evil of administrating any organization—which incidentally includes private ones, and thus all charitable organizations. I have never understood the apparent conservative notion that privatizing things magically eliminates bureaucracy. Tell that to your private insurance carrier. I literally got my first gray hair dealing with a private bureaucracy that badly bungled my medical leave and short term disability insurance to the point that I they nearly denied me any payment for thousands of dollars in medical bills, cost me my job and left me owing my employer the month of disability pay they advanced me on the expectation my claim would be granted.

First they needed to know my "attending physician" and condition, and it took several days effort to reach ANYONE who could answer my question: Was my "attending physician" the ER doc who put my arm back in its socket or the orthopedic surgeon his discharge orders required I see three times before returning to work (which he forbade for a week regardless.) The customer service rep insisted they only needed the surgeon, but I was unconvinced, so he finally recorded the ER doc, too, "just in case (this was critically important later.) I dutifully went to the orthopedic surgeon and asked if I could return to work; he told me I should lift nothing heavy, and since my employer forbade me returning to work till I could perform all essential job functions (including hauling around 50+ lb. steel trays,) I took that as "no."

For the first month off work by written order of the ER doc who put my arm back in its socket I tried almost daily to reach the insurer and find out my claim status, rarely getting more than a recording. Finally, after three of six scheduled weeks of physical therapy, my arm felt strong enough to do my job again, so I headed back to work. I did my 12 hour shift, came home, went to bed and just before I nodded off the case worker whose name I had not even be able to get called: My medical leave and short term disability claims had both been denied because I "was never taken off work."

To say I was indignant would be an understatement, and I angrily pointed out that the ER docs written discharged stated I could not go back to work until 1) at least a week later and 2) I had seen an orthopedic surgeon. The case worker was unimpressed, but told me I could appeal, which I soon did. During that two month ordeal I repeatedly tried to contact the case worker again, but to this day the first time I spoke with her was also the last. Every time I called I got a very sympathetic but totally powerless customer service rep who could not even access any of the information I sought. The best they could do was transfer me to the case worker.

I spoke with her voicemail many times. I also discussed that with more customer service reps, who said they could set up a "mandatory call back" since I evidently could not speak with my case worker any other way; company policy required mandatory call backs to be made within 48 hours. After three days of silence I go to—set up another mandatory call back I never received. At one point, since I was doing all this in between 12 hour shifts, my MOTHER even decided to start calling them, but she knew how the game is played and asked for the case workers SUPERVISOR: Mandatory call back within 48 hours; we are still waiting for that call....

Along the way I went back to the orthopedic surgeon, who informed me he had barred me from returning to work when he said I could lift nothing heavy, because I could just do a different job than my normal one. He evidently missed the part where my employer explicitly said I could not work until/unless able to perform all essential job functions (mainly because they did not want liability issues.) The only good news there was that I picked the right day for the trip; the following day someone flew a small airplane over the interchange I had to use and into the local IRS building, because he was also tired of watching a bureaucracy try to destroy his life just for the Hell of it.

I mentioned that shortly thereafter when I finally spoke to an appeals supervisors supervisor. I also mentioned my mother retired from the TX State Attorney Generals office (without bothering to mention she is not a lawyer.) I do not know if it had any effect, but within a couple days the supervisors supervisor called back to say my claims had been granted after all because, after three months, someone had finally bothered to check their files for the copy of the ER doctors discharge that they had from the start (because I faxed it to them.) Remember, the written discharge forbidding me to work until I 1) had been off for a week and 2) saw an orthopedic surgeon? From the ER doc whose name they said at the start they did not need, and only took because I pressed the issue?

I never did speak to my caseworker save for the one time when she called to tell me she had denied a claim that should have been routinely accepted. The woman I spoke to at the end seemed sincerely embarrassed none of those mandatory callbacks had been made, and a little concerned that I had filed a complaint not only with the insurance carrier, but with my employer (i.e. their client.) I occasionally wonder if incompetence that nearly got me fired got my case worker fired; I am genuinely unsure how I would feel about that with the economy in its current state.

What I do know, and knew before then, is that bureaucracies are far from restricted to government. The only difference is that government bureaucrats have at least some accountability to the public, whereas private ones have NONE (hence I made it clear I would be sharing tales of their incompetence with their client; I alone simply did not rate.) Efficiency? It took them three months to reverse denial of what should have been an automatic claim, during which I paid for extra unnecessary doctor trips and to send them a half dozen faxes of his reports, X-rays, physical therapy reports; you name it. After all that I STILL would have lost my job and coverage of all medical bills had not I, over their demurral, insisted they take my ER doctors information at the very start, then implicitly THREATENED them at the end.

From start to finish I DID THEIR JOB FOR THEM. Tell me how much more efficient the private sector is than government bureaucracy.

Sorry that turned into a bit of a rant, but I always thought of stuff like that every time I heard people sing the praises of privatization over inefficient, incompetent and often corrupt government bureaucracy, as if bureaucracy is not ubiqutious in or out of government. The difference is I now have painful firsthand experience with it. I could tell you a similar tale of my mothers experience trying to get Blue Cross to pay for a leg brace they said was only available to diabetics (which she was long ago diagnosed to be.) Even as a government employee she could not avoid private bureaucracy screwing her around: She just could not vote it out of power for the trouble.