Monday, January 24, 2005

Best Healthcare Anywhere

And it's not in any high-falutin' fancy hospital system. It's in that single-payer, government-run institution, the Veterans Administration.
Conservatives are forever shutting down progressive health care reform ideas by saying that the more government gets involved the worse things will be. But in the VA, you have a totally government-run healthcare system that is besting the private sector on both cost and quality. And it's a system wrapped in the patriotic colors of the American military! That doesn’t mean Democrats should start arguing for government-run health care--though they might consider Longman's intriguing suggestion that we let the VA take over bankrupt non-VA hospitals and make citizens who provide non-military national service eligible for VA care. But it sure does challenge the notion that the only way to fix our broken private-sector-dominated healthcare system is to make it even more private sector.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This has got to be sarcasm. Nobody is ignorant enough to seriously claim that the VA medical system works - except for the perfumed princes. For the average vet the VA system is a nightmare of incompetence and negligence. As perverted as the "private" system has become with its overwhelming government meddling, it is still light years beyond the quality and quantity available in the VA system.

Kendall Miller said...

It too bad your assumption is so deeply ingrained that actual data can not penetrate it. Your whole world view might disintegrate to bits it were to be demonstrated that government has a proven track record at being more competent in some selected areas than your beloved market.