The good news is that government only needs to keep costs lower than the private system. That doesn't require a good job of controlling costs.

Really? For the most part, the government is pretty functional at all levels and while costs generally rise it seems like they do less so than compared to the privatized version.

I'm sure there are many cases where they do a bad job and costs rise, but I'd imagine the things government has done well and that keep costs somewhat okay far outweighs it and I also imagine you never hear about 99% of the stuff where things are humming along.