Failure of Government Programs

Mona Charen wrote:

Government programs, after all, fail frequently but are almost never held to account, far less held up to ridicule.

Education:

In an era everyone keeps telling us is hi-tech-centered, only about 75 percent of American students graduate from high school. ...  A 2009 survey by Common Core found that fewer than half of American high schoolers could place the Civil War in the correct half-century, 25 percent thought Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue after 1750 and 33 percent couldn't identify the Bill of Rights. ... American students lag behind their peers from other developed nations in math, technology and literacy. You'd think that parents, especially those in poor neighborhoods, would be in the streets protesting. ... Is education too complicated and multifactorial? If you think so, have a glance at “No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning,” by Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom.

Medicaid:

Deamonte Driver was a seventh-grader in Prince George's County, Md., who died because he couldn't get a dentist appointment. Avik Roy tells his story in “How Medicaid Fails the Poor.” When Deamonte complained of a toothache in September 2006, his mother began calling around, seeking a dentist who would take a patient with Medicaid coverage. Several months and dozens of phone calls later, she finally found one who explained to her that Deamonte had six abscessed teeth and required the services of an oral surgeon, which once again, prompted another frustrating round of phone calls and several months of delay. A week before his surgery was finally scheduled, Deamonte complained of a severe headache. He was rushed to the hospital where doctors found his dental infection had spread to his brain. Brain surgery revived him for a while but after a few weeks, he died. ...  A system of catastrophic coverage combined with “concierge” service (paying physicians $80 per month to see each Medicaid patient) would cost $3,460 per person, or 42 percent less than what Obamacare proposes to spend. ... It's even worse to waste large sums of money on programs that make everyone, on balance, worse off than competing arrangements would.

It is We the People that must ensure true reformation takes place in our federal, state, and local governments; it certainly is not just up to the politicians who make promises never kept once they get your vote - on both sides of the political aisle. It is about time that elected officials and government employees appointed and hired by those elected begin accountability yesterday. Remember this when 2014 elections begin.
FURTHER READING:
You've Got to Stand for Freedom - Anton D. Rehling 
When Do We Call Enough, Enough? - Anton D. Rehling

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