Bureaucratic Logic

Today is Election Day-- yes, I voted-- so let's look at what seems to be a bit of squirelly bureaucratic logic.

When I was at the nursing home, only nurses could give me my medications-- CNAs like Yodit were not allowed to do it.  Now, working for Insights, Yodit can and does give me my meds-- perfectly competently-- but the PAs who work for Tendercare are prohibited from doing so.  Maybe it's a matter of insurance policies and insurance rates and who pays what, but it's probably deeper than that.  Bureaucracies, whether government or private, try to protect themselves in various ways.  One way is to limit the scope of action of its employees tightly enough to rule out as many mistakes as possible.  That approach denies human initiative, wastes human abilities, and builds a process that is unnecesarily complex-- but it does all that in the name of safety.

The problem is, it's not necessarily the safety of the individual being served that's at issue.  Rather, maybe too often, it's the safety of the bureaucrats involved and the politicians who set up the process.  Even that kind of safety would be fine if it didn't put undue burden on people who have to make the process work.  Unfortunately, those people regularly pay a price for the safety of others.