Looks like we have a trend this week.
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) is evidently one of the attack dogs selected for the damaging the Veteran’s Administration. Here he is on Meet The Press:
… yeah, it’s, it’s a reflection of the fact that the VA healthcare system is a government-run, single-payer, bureaucratic healthcare system. And it doesn’t work. You know, Senator Coburn, one of his last reports talked about how the VA system, in– on average, doctors have about 1,200 cases. In the private sector, it’s about 2,300. You know, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve spent so much money on the VA. And we’ve increased funding, overall, about 2.3 times in the last ten years, on healthcare spending, 1.5. And it’s still a mess.
Hey, buddy, let’s add in some relevant facts. Remember the Iraq War? The Afghanistan War? I know you didn’t vote for them, but still – you do understand they generated casualties, which now require treatment?
In fact, because emergency medical care has improved drastically over the years, a higher percentage of casualties survive their wounds long enough to make it back to the States than was true during other conflicts, which means these wounds – which are often far more expensive to treat – end up on the V.A.’s gurneys, operating rooms, and rehabilitation rounds.
And just one more thing, Senator. Demographics. The Vietnam vets are entering late middle age, even senior citizen status. Those old wounds still require treatment as those old bodies start coming apart. And that’s expensive. From old shrapnel to chemical wounds to psychological wounds, those all cost money.
You gave them lots of money? Good. You did the right thing. Stop being a putz about it. Steve Benen points at this article in the Washington Monthly which refutes Johnson’s claims – and asserts this is a manufactured scandal:
This, combined with the increasing volume of vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, contributed to an increasingly large backlog of unprocessed eligibility claims. For those who managed to get into the VA, the quality of care continued generally to be demonstrably better than that found out outside the system. A systematic review of thirty-six studies comparing the quality of VA and non-VA care found that as of 2009, “almost all demonstrated that the VA performed better than non-VA comparison groups.” But during the Bush years, access was becoming an increasing problem, causing many vets to become embittered, though often without understanding what the root cause of the problem was. As frustrations with red tape mounted among vets and the press focused on breakdowns in claims processing, the conditions were set for new attempts by conservative ideologues and corporate health care providers to privatize the VA.
That’s just a taste. Under Obama’s pick of General Shinseki to lead the V.A., performance was even better. It’s a big article, and worth reading.
It’s a socialized medical system, and that’s why it has to go – because it works. And that’s why the GOP is upset. It has shortcomings, but no one should be surprised – an institution that large will always have shortcomings. We just have to be engineers, calmly and soberly addressing those issues.
Not running around trying to destroy an institution supporting vets better than the general health system might. That’s just outright betrayal.
