[neonstatic]

> if I dislike what e.g. the department of labour is doing with information it's collecting, I can vote for various representatives up and down the hierarchy of power

How has that been going? Did you manage to elect someone, who made a positive change? Let's be charitable - you can pick an example from your life that goes back up to 50 years.

[wredcoll]

Sure, Obama (and friends) got the ACA passed which, among other things, forbade health insurance companies from refusing service to people with "pre-existing conditions" as well as also forbidding lifetime caps on services needed for treatment.

Is it the best most perfect law ever passed in the history of humanity? Obviously not. Is it substantially better than what came before? YES. It's hard to explain just how screwed you were if you started getting hit by the "pre-existing conditions" disqualifier or your health insurance decided that they only needed to spend a million treating your cancer and after that you're on your own.