In which we introduce the word superfetation

Over at Voluntary Exchange we are introduced to the word "superfetation". Strictly speaking it refers to a second pregnancy that starts while a woman is already pregnant. But it is often used colloquially to have a wider meaning than that. And it is this wider meaning that we should perhaps popularise:

This came up in a discussion of Obamacare:

… The new American mandatory insurance system has shortcomings that are not necessarily related to the idea of mandatory insurance - as instead with the bureaucratic superfetations of such a system engendered by the way the US Administration has planned it.

I like that idea: layers of bureaucracy being added onto existing layers of bureaucracy (perhaps, because the earlier layers aren’t working well). I’ve always described bureaucracy as continuing revisions of a Frankenstein monster: it didn’t quite work the first time, so we’re going to staple on some new part and hope for the best.

Now I have a word for that: superfetation.

The Chancellor announcing help for people to buy houses then the Bank of England raising interest rates in order to cool house prices: superfetation. The government subsidising green energy plants with vast feed in tarrifs, then having to restrict the number of green energy plants in order not to bust the budget: superfetation.

A word I think we should use more and I've no doubt that you can provide further useful examples and definitions in the comments.