Public or Private

In today's world (sort of) and particularly from some years on (mid 80's and particularly harder in the 90's) the growing "economical liberalism" often pushed people to say that "privately owned" enterprises work much better than "publicly owned" enterprises. You probably heard these comments, maybe even made them (in which case, after the financial crisis you should really feel so damned stupid, right?), and the wave of "bitch againts public enterpises" grew to a common place. I won't say that people weren't right to bitch about the long lines and the waiting that turned services such as banks, hospitals, getting your driving license and so on into the capitalist version of the "good ol' socialist queues for bread". Yes, the uncaring, slow, inefficient, "one-too-many-lines-for-one-single-stamp" were the general brand of such services.

People, aware or unaware of the interests behind the complains, bought the line and repeated it until in many places, many countries, many publicly held services were opened to the competition. Private enterprises flooded the markets, stomping in like a bull stampede down a narrow street. A lot of flashy gifts and promos and advertisements and things people had never heard of, and more and more and more making people's eyes widen and shine with emotion, blinded by the sparkle and the shine so they never noticed what was really going on under the glitter.

But when the glitter and the shine wores off, people find out the overly priced services, the twists and turns in the contracts, the "limitations" they weren't used to, and then all the things the private companies are entitled to the abuse they can get away with wwhich isn't even tipified as abuse because "they are a private enterprise and private law is different from public law".

In a particular case I will today refer to banks and what we have experienced here in Costa Rica, really, in a nutshell. I was making the line at one private bank to pay one of my credit cards. The line was not short. When standing in a line in a public bank people often complain about the long lines and the poor service, and how private banks are much better. When I was a teller I used to wish to tell them that if they thought a private bank was much better, I would happily empty their accounts and they could take their freaking money and put it there, see if they like it. (Later on, as a client, I actually said that to a lady in the line behind me. It felt awesome!) This time, however, I was in a private bank and the line, almost bursting out of the door wasn't moving much and wasn't fast. The man before me and I started talking - okay, bitching - and came to the conclusion that public banks are much better.

Here in Costa Rica private banks offer the same poor Customer Care as public banks, and even worse, several of them have gone bankrupt swallowing in the dark waters of good-bye the money of the savers, who will never again see that money (that's a private bank's prerrogative: no one answers for the money lost), charge abusive interest rates (yeah, some cards have basically a 56% annual rate. Oh no, I haven't forgotten the comma) and shady conditions. Promotions that actually apply to nothing you would really do, and that would cost you more than you are actually willing to pay for, and payments set in such a way that no matter how much you pay, you will always owe more and more and more.

So this got me thinking: private banks came into the market as "saviors" and "real good options" that would make you competitive, get you cheap credit, higher interest rates on your savings, and add to it, more and more services that, given the competition, would become cheaper and cheaper; but in real life none of that happened. It has happened also with private health services, where basically private labs and private doctors find you and create you more problems and sicknesses so that they can pump your wallet. Just in my family, in 2003 a private lab decided that I had the chollesterol levels of a 60 year-old man (I was 27). I had to take some pills and change my diet, which really didn't change that much (since I hardly eat) but took on going to Subway much more often. In less than a year those 4-times-the-healthy-level of chollesteron simply vanished. The second time I made the test at a public clinic.

My Mom had started suffering a mild case of asthma, so she went to a private doctor for a check up. The doctor told her that she couldn't breath normally because her nose was crooked and she needed a plastic surgery to straighten it up. Well, Mom's nose ain't crooked, and even if her nose's shape were the problem, wouldn't that have caused a problem, earlier? Let's say "not when she's over 60"? Unnecesary procedures, the promotion of "treatments à-la-carte", more and more plastic surgeons and less general doctors or specialists, basically because that "leaves no money"... is that really better? Is it really better to pay 40% of your salary to some private insurance that would hold you to "pre-existing conditions", or paying nothing monthly but then, when in need, rushing to the bank for a loan and hoping you don't have to sell your kids for slavery if the thing gets more complicated, or wouldn't it be better 9% of your salary for a humble social service that would treat you for whatever you have from a cold to AIDS? (Some people say their doctors tell them, that some things the Social Security can't provide them. Ain't true: the Social Security is forced to treat the patient and find ways for the treatment. May not me the most modern, the most revolutionary, but they have all they need to treat a patient. The doctors who say the Social Security don't have the treatment either are not informed or are looking to do business out of the patient's pain. - to my understanding and based on the information given to me by a source in the administration and a nurse -)

So banks fail, hospitals fail (a private hospital actually "accidentally" killed the father in law of one of our presidents), what else fails? Private employers that abuse their employees? Private contractors, that would cut costs everywhere they can, and basically "there where it can't be seen"?

Public, private, it's not a matter of "ownership", I believe, but a matter of morals and commitment.