Bureaucracy, enabled by lawmakers, to blame for much of our system’s ills

Regarding the recent article “Deregulation agenda expected to continue despite Price’s resignation,” (ModernHealthcare.com, Oct. 3), unelected bureaucrats should not be making policies, bold, new or otherwise, especially those not directly appointed by Congress as their directors.

But part of the blame lies with duly elected representatives and senators who are lazy or intentionally vague in their language in passing laws that are open to a wide variety of interpretation. This leads to the expansion of the bureaucratic “fourth branch” of government that can make rules that carry the weight of the law but are diametrically opposite of the intent of the law itself, and create new jobs for more bureaucrats to impose and enforce those new policies, often without any oversight or accountability or budgetary restraint.

Thus the Paperwork Reduction Act actually increased paperwork, the Affordable Care Act becomes the unaffordable care act, etc. “That government is best which governs least” is just as true today as it was when it was first proposed.

Lawrence Jankowski

Morton Grove, Ill.