Monday, April 10, 2006
Government is More Efficient than Private Charities
The title is a statement that goes against the grain of every “conservative” I know. They all think that government – any government, federal, state, local, municipal – is naturally less efficient than a private, non-profit charity.
I don’t know from direct experience how efficient private charities are at delivering services. I’ve read that some of them are pretty good and nimble at responding to emergencies. My experience is with the fund-raising ability of private charities against that of government. I receive periodically solicitations for money from the Alzheimer’s Association, the Cystic Fibrosis Association, the Christopher Reeve Foundation, Doctors without Borders, Paralyzed American Veterans, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, St. Labre’s Indian School, St. Joseph’s Indian School, and other. Their fund-raising costs must be greater than the cost of raising money for Social Security or Medicare. There’s postage on the letters they send me. There’s the cost of the little gifts they send as rewards for my past donations or inducements for future gifts. The address labels, the greeting cards, the ball-point pens, and other gifts must cost them a good fraction of the money they are able to get from me. I have read that the cost of fund raising for such organizations can be anywhere from ten to forty percent of the money raised. The most efficient fund raising operations are those that do not provide gifts to donors.
Compare this with Social Security and Medicare. I have never received a gift from either organization (aside from the monthly pension from Social Security and the health insurance from Medicare). They are very efficient at raising money. On the other side, my experience with Social Security and Medicare is that they are very effective in delivering services. I admit that, before I joined an HMO and had to keep track of both my co-payments and Medicare payments to my doctor, Medicare did require some accounting skill on my part and usually took a couple of months to provide payments to the doctor.
I still assert that Social Security is more efficient at both collecting revenue and providing services than many private charities. So, take that, all of you conservatives.
I don’t know from direct experience how efficient private charities are at delivering services. I’ve read that some of them are pretty good and nimble at responding to emergencies. My experience is with the fund-raising ability of private charities against that of government. I receive periodically solicitations for money from the Alzheimer’s Association, the Cystic Fibrosis Association, the Christopher Reeve Foundation, Doctors without Borders, Paralyzed American Veterans, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, St. Labre’s Indian School, St. Joseph’s Indian School, and other. Their fund-raising costs must be greater than the cost of raising money for Social Security or Medicare. There’s postage on the letters they send me. There’s the cost of the little gifts they send as rewards for my past donations or inducements for future gifts. The address labels, the greeting cards, the ball-point pens, and other gifts must cost them a good fraction of the money they are able to get from me. I have read that the cost of fund raising for such organizations can be anywhere from ten to forty percent of the money raised. The most efficient fund raising operations are those that do not provide gifts to donors.
Compare this with Social Security and Medicare. I have never received a gift from either organization (aside from the monthly pension from Social Security and the health insurance from Medicare). They are very efficient at raising money. On the other side, my experience with Social Security and Medicare is that they are very effective in delivering services. I admit that, before I joined an HMO and had to keep track of both my co-payments and Medicare payments to my doctor, Medicare did require some accounting skill on my part and usually took a couple of months to provide payments to the doctor.
I still assert that Social Security is more efficient at both collecting revenue and providing services than many private charities. So, take that, all of you conservatives.
