From a Post story today comes another reminder of why I firmly believe our Federal government is weak. The story is about the problems states face in implementing the health care law. Lots of people in 50 states plus the territories have to do lots of different things. That's because HHS won't deal directly with health care providers or the public, all the dealing is done via the medium of the states and their departments.
I say "they won't deal directly" but that's only partially true. Go to healthcare.gov and you'll find explanations of the new rules. But, and it's an important but, prominent in the upper left of the page is a box: "Pick Your State", because the stuff which really matters is dependent on the decisions made by governors and state legislatures, and implemented, or not, by the state healthcare bureaucracy.
By compare, in a bureaucracy like FSA, the federal bureaucracy is dealing directly with farmers, through the medium of county offices. Granted, that simple statement hides a bunch of complexity, but if you're going to have fast and efficient implementation of decisions, that's the way you go. As a nation, however, we think it's better to waste time and money in favor of giving more power to state and local levels. We feel that will improve the quality of the decisions being implemented.
Over at the NYTimes Tom Friedman has a column on the differences between China and the U.S., noting they're able to build impressive things in a short time, while we take years and years to do things, like build at Ground Zero. Or India, another democracy, which is having problems building the infrastructure for the Commonwealth Games, as compared to China's preparations for the Olympics.
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