The High Cost Of Bureaucratic Inertia
It’s a bit sad today to see the state legislature send to the governor tens of millions of dollars in new spending on a veteran’s home stuck in rural North Dakota. A place so far out of the way that most veterans would just as soon not bother traveling to it.
I don’t have a problem with rural cities, but something like a veterans home should be placed in a location where it does the most good for veterans.
Now, I understand that our state’s constitution (Article IX, Section 13 specifically) mentions Lisbon as the place for a home (or “other charitable institution as the legislative assembly may determine”). But doesn’t that mean we should just amend the constitution to move the location of this home to a better place? Or just work around that constitutional requirement?
It seems to me that a better solution for veteran care in the state would be to contract with private health care providers to give care to the veterans. This would not only move the location of care closer to where the veterans actually live, thus making their lives easier, it would also probably cost significantly less than maintaining a large government health care facility out in the middle of nowhere.
And such a solution probably wouldn’t even require a constitutional amendment. Why not stick an administrative office in Lisbon responsible for handling the contracts and payments to the various private health care facilities around the state that would, in turn, be providing care to the veterans?
Is that not a viable solution that would have saved the taxpayers of this state about $100 million?
Maybe it just makes too much sense.
Our political leaders need to spend a little more time thinking out of the box.
