For some reason, my local liberal Gannett paper decided Thanksgiving weekend was the right time to do a big expose on the VA hospitals.
Most people in Middle Tennessee refer to the Tennessean as the Gore Gazette, as it is little more than a mouthpiece for the Democrat Party. The paper reacts in horror to the stories of incompetence and really poor care given veterans at the VA hospitals.
Stories of horrible care at VA hospitals are legend. The paper mentions the story of one vet who almost had his leg amputated because the hospital could not distinguish between him and another patient with the same name. My doctor told me about his days as a resident in a VA hospital. On one occasion, a patient spent thirty days in the hospital simply because he fell through the cracks and was forgotten about. Another story he told me about was nurses continuing to make chart entries on a patient who had died hours earlier and no one had noticed.
Our veterans do deserve better that what they are getting.
The left’s idea of treating our vets better is simply to throw more money at a massive bureaucracy.
The problems with the VA have one simple cause. This is government health care and if we ever needed a reason to fear single payer healthcare, all we have to do is look at the VA.
There is a simple solution. Abolish the VA healthcare system. Instead of a massive and inefficient government run healthcare system, we should instead give veterans who would qualify for VA services, Veterans Insurance. Instead of making them go to an inefficient and dangerous government hospital, give them insurance that they can use at private sector hospitals.
Veterans Insurance will allow our vets who have served this country to take their benefits wherever they want and not be restricted to just the VA hospitals. Private hospitals do not forget about someone for a month. Private hospitals can tell the difference between someone who is having an appendectomy and someone who is having a leg amputated, even if they have the same name.
Our vets deserve better than the appalling substandard care many of them receive. The taxpayers deserve better than just another government black hole that sucks money and resources.
We need to give our veterans the resources they need to get quality medical care from the private sector and get rid of a bloated worthless government bureaucracy.
Permalink Reply by Roger Tucker on Good article!
Permalink Reply by Doug Nicholson on Several years ago, I quit AARP because there were 2 articles in the same issue of their monthly magazine. The first decried the inexcusably poor treatment provided in our VA hospitals and the second pushed the idea that we needed government-run universal health care. I wrote them, canceling my membership and telling them they were obviously insane.
Permalink Reply by Dave Koch on Get rid of the Unions out of the VA's and it might just be run right and make sure any of the Director's of the Hospitals are Veterans and not a bunch of worthless Government Idiots who have no experience in dealing with Veterans. Don't hire people from the Rehab Centers as they did in Dallas. There are many reasons to rid a bunch of idioits as there are many who work at our VA Hospitals that do care and do know what it takes. As long as our VAMC are run by our Government it will be no different than the Idiots who are running this Country, a bunch of worthless F---up's and cons.
Permalink Reply by James Reagan Clements on
Permalink Reply by Michael Goodfellow on I do not believe it to be the elimination of benefits but a true reform. Fixing a broken system. Judson's proposal will ensure that Veterans receive the benefits they deserve.
Permalink Reply by Michael on My nephew is a veteran of the Afghan war. He absolutely hates the VA and he hates the support that the USA gives its returning veterans. Veteran's if Iraq and Afghanistan wars who have returned and have been discharged have a 50% unemployment rate, and they are 3 times more likely to commit suicide than their non veteran peers. Something needs to be done about this and dumping the massively expensive, criminally incompetent VA system would free up the money for job training and for psychiatric support. It is disgraceful and sinful they way our veterans are neglected by the country they willingly and honorably served.
Permalink Reply by Darwin Rockantansky on The V.A. system is abysmal in far too many places, but it is all that I have and that is not much. I need two drugs; neither of which are on the V.A. formulary (list of authorized drugs). Both are common and one is heavily advertised on the mass media. I pay for them out of pocket - from a Canadian pharmacy for 1/6th the cost on this side of the border because they are generic in Canada. I was recently assigned to a new doctor since my last one retired at 80+ and spoke English slightly better than the doctor I am currently assigned to and who appears to be a bit older. I blew out a knee and told that I might be able to get to see an orthopedic specialist in about six months or so... they are still checking.
Despite Ms. Backmann's assertion that "...veterans have it too good", most of us vets would disagree.
Personally, I would argue that what ever justification the elite of this country (congress) used to justify their "gold plated" health care system should be more applicable to our veterans than it is to the elite.
I know that the unions will fight it, but we vets should demand that we be treated at least as well as the crooks in congress.
Darwin Rockantansky
Las Vegas, Nevada
Permalink Reply by Mike NQR on Actually, the crooks in Congress deserve no special health care whatsoever. They should have the same kind of health care everyone else has. What better way to truly reform health care. I do agree that Vets should have top-notch benefits, however. I wonder how such a change in veterans' health care would work for us older vets who served in past conflicts or in peacetime. Airborne all the way!!!
Permalink Reply by Willard Thurman Bateman on I tried the VA. My left arm nearly rotted off before they got the right med on it.
They sent me a bill. I am a retired 20 year navy vet and thought the bill was just a info thing. I finally found that they really expected me to pay after the VA increased the debt greatly every month.
Back to Medicare Part A & B and Tricare for life. Great!
Buddy
Permalink Reply by Allen Bray on At the same time, patients do bear some responsibility for their healthcare. As a veteran, I am not in an area in which VA healthcare is easily accessible. I have found, however, that all healtcare facilities make some errors and that in order to receive optimal care, the patient and/or the family should make certain the treatment proposed is appropriate and accurate for the patient involved.
At the same time, the proposal to provide veteran's care through a program of VA sponsored insurance is an interesting option, rather like school vouchers. The money should follow the patient. Never-the-less, regardless of the methodology, fallible humans will make mistakes. There will always be horror stories of missed diagnoses and erroneous treatment procedures. Those can not be eliminated. The effort to reduce them should be on-going and intentional, regardless of the provider.
ab
Permalink Reply by Danny Kirkpatrick on This is a noval idea, one wonders why no one has thought of it before, unless they have and it was shot down. I agree about the problem of unions, they have garnered to much power. And what greedy idiot alowed them into the public sector in the first place? Boy was that a stupid move and a disaster for America. Unions have there place in the private sector, but we need to pull there teeth before they eat us alive.
Permalink Reply by james stamulis on a-men judson! i have been telling people how bad the VA is fo healthcare and it is the perfect example of what government run healthcare will be. i have had to go to VA hospitals and clinics for 30 years and i have had lawyers tell me what they did to me was criminal but it is hard to sue the federal government for malpractice unless you have a lot of money. there are good doctors and nurses there but there are also some of the worse you will ever find and they are under staffed and under paid and you never get to choose your doctor. they do not even carry all the medicine that vets need. i carry extra insurance to get the meds the VA does not even have but i need. i do not want my kids and grand kids to have this kind of care. when obamacare was being voted on no one brought up how bad they run the VA. thank god for groups like the disabled american veterans and the vfw etc. they are the ones that stick up for the vets. they should scrap the VA and give them insurance instead and they will save tons of money.
© 2013 Created by Judson Phillips.
