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In many cases, the reason for that is fear of competing with the private sector... Amtrak (or a collection of train operators like Japan or Europe has) could be fantastic but for one thing - the for-profit freight trains have right-of-way (on railroads built with massive government subsidies and breaks). An unreliable train system is doomed no matter what money you throw at it.
In some cases, its because the private sector would have never done it on its own because of the startup costs (NASA which gets tremendous value per dollar by any accounting).
Social Security would be quite in-the-black if the politicians wouldn't steal from it. Once a month it delivers an astounding number of checks properly.
Medicare has been quite successful - medical professionals love its smoothness BUT they grimace because it is underfunded --- why? Because there's a cap the number of dollars of a person's income that are taxed. A couple making $250K a year only pays Medicare taxes on the first $90Kish. Someone making a million a year only pays Medicare taxes on the first $90Kish. Hmmmmmm, that's not even a flat tax - its just stupid. (and yes, our family makes well over the cap).
I'd like to slap anyone that claims "private sector always does it better". They literally don't know what they're talking about. I've worked in private, non-profit, and government. Any corporation can be not only just as inefficient as any government but often more inefficient because of the politics within the corporation and the authoritarian hierarchy -- Dilbert is a corporate manual, not a satire.... I can give specific examples of both brilliance and godforsaken-waste in each sector.
Any organization, corporate or government, can be a piece of crap or relatively trouble-free.
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