>
> Well, maybe - this close to waht I meant; but I would argue that cost should take a very low
> position on the priority list when it comes to evaluating "efficiency" in the public sector.
>
> No, on second thought I still think it has no place in that consideration whatsoever - at least in
> countries like the U.S. and Canada. There isplenty of wealth in these countries.
>
I completely disagree, Jessica. This 'regarless of cost' attittude is one of the reasons why even socialized health care is grossly inefficient in the US (although not nearly as much as private health care, of course). Medicare spending, for example, is heavily skewed towards the last few weeks of life. This leads to absurdities like the US having the worst child inmunization record in the industrialized world, while it pays for complicated surgery on 84-year-olds out of taxpayer money.
> Jess
-- Enrique Diaz-Alvarez Office # (607) 255 5034 Electrical Engineering Home # (607) 758 8962 112 Phillips Hall Fax # (607) 255 4565 Cornell University mailto:enrique at ee.cornell.edu Ithaca, NY 14853 http://peta.ee.cornell.edu/~enrique