On Veteran's Healthcare

Michelle has rounded up several Milblogger links regarding the current issue with Walter Reed. I'm in no way downplaying the issue, or suggesting any problems shouldn't be addressed ASAP.

However, I would call your attention to this piece from Washington Monthly just two short years ago. Then the issue was universal healthcare. And several independent groups were said to have evaluated the veterans healthcare system and pronounced it as, not only first rate, but an example of why America needs universal healthcare.

The best care anywhere: ten years ago, veterans hospitals were dangerous, dirty, and scandal-ridden. Today, they're producing the highest quality care in the country. Their turnaround points the way toward solving America's health-care crisis

And so it goes today. If the debate is over health-care reform, it won't be long before some free-market conservative will jump up and say that the sorry shape of the nation's veterans hospitals just proves what happens when government gets into the health-care business. And if he's a true believer, he'll then probably go on to suggest, quoting William Satire and other free marketers, that the government should just shut down the whole miserable system and provide veterans with health-care vouchers.

Yet here's a curious fact that few conservatives or liberals know. Who do you think receives higher-quality health care. Medicare patients who are free to pick their own doctors and specialists? Or aging veterans stuck in those presumably filthy VA hospitals with their antiquated equipment, uncaring administrators, and incompetent staff?. An answer came in 2003, when the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a study that compared veterans health facilities on 11 measures of quality with fee-for-service Medicare. On all 11 measures, the quality of care in veterans facilities proved to be "significantly better."

Comments

[scarshapedstar]

"I'm in no way downplaying the issue, or suggesting any problems shouldn't be addressed ASAP.

However..."

Okay, that's great and all. However, you seem to be overlooking 3 pretty big points.

1) The number of injured vets is rising, not falling.

2) The amount of money that President Troop-Supporter allots for their care each year is falling, not rising.

3) These hospitals in particular are being closed down because... well, for SOME fucking reason that is completely beyond me. I'm sure they have a good explanation for shutting them down in the middle of a war. But anyway, that's why they're falling apart; nobody is willing to spend money on a place that's being shuttered in about a year. And I'm fairly sure that they made this stupid decision after the WaMo monthly was written.

Anyway, it looks like pretty soon all these guys will be thrown out on the street. Maybe that's an improvement. Or maybe they'll be ushered into a lucrative Halliburton-administered private veterans assistance program...

[Bill Faith]

I linked from 'Taking care of the troops -- The rest of the story' -- http://www.smalltownveteran.net/bills_bites/2007/02/taking_care_of_.html. I guess I have to express some major doubts about that Washington Monthly piece. I've been an outpatient in the VA medical system for over three years now and I find it very difficult to believe that any patient with the option of shopping around for another doctor could be treated worse than the typical VA patient. I've been told to my face 'If you don't like how I treat you feel free to find another doctor. Ha, ha!' Once I win my court case against Social Security (at least the VA admits I'm sick) the VA has seen the last of me.

[Purple Avenger]

"The amount of money that President Troop-Supporter allots for their care each year is falling, not rising."

Don't suppose that might have anything to do with declining demand? The huge bubble of WWII vets has been dying in droves, and Korean War vets are well on their way too.

[wolfwalker]

I've never been in a VA hospital, so I know nothing about how they're actually run. But when I saw that the cited study came from "the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine," my first thought was "get somebody trustworthy to double-check." The NEJM used to be a reliable and trustworthy medical journal, but in recent years it has published some pretty wobbly stuff. In most of those cases, the wobbly article was slanted in favor of liberal ideas and policies.

[Hard Right]

Well, I have multiple relatives and familly friends who are WWII and Vietnam Vets, and they have nothing but praise for their VA hospitals.
My g/f's mother is a surgical assistant and she hasn't had good experiences with 3 of the civilian hospitals in AZ. She has related multiple incidents of how poorly they are run. At one point her daughter had a stroke and it took the hospital 3 hours to get her air evac'd to another hospital that could help her!

Take the scope of the VA problem with a grain of salt. NEJM is not reliable as previously stated.

[Hard Right]

Oh and purple, there have been repeated increases in VA care funding. Whether or not that accounts for the increase, I don't know.

[seekeronos]

I'd be curious to see how the spending is being managed per hospital.

Is it a matter of funds declining on par with the availability of facilities, or less so, such that there is a greater average available funds per remaining VA hospitals?

Unfortunately, _if_ WRH is slated for closure, some of its funding can be expected to be removed; how the administrators choose to channel the remaining funds (i.e. the pockets of contractors and other folks "in it for the money") will see the writing on the wall and try to get as much out of a dying system as possible.

Sad that our vets who are less able to leverage the decision-making processes of the _government_health_care_system_ will have to suffer for it.

[Zifnab]

It is worth noting that Walter Reed is administered directly by the Defense Departmant and is not an arm of the VA. It is also worth noting that Walter Reed has been at the forefront of prosthetics research and rehabilitative treatments for years. These accounting coming out of WR are a shock for good reason.

However, a year ago, WR was on the list of military instillations to get mothballed. This was in the thick of two ongoing wars. To date we have over 20,000 seriously injuried soldiers coming from the Iraq theater alone. Just this week over 500 soldiers will have lost one or more limbs in combat.

One of the virtues of all those armored humvees and top-of-the-line body armor everyone on the left and right talks about is that it keeps quite a few more serious wounds from becoming outright casualties. But wounds still need to be treated. In slashing the budget repeatedly, the Bush Administration has funneled more and more money into weapons contractors and extended tours of duty and recruiting efforts and redeployments, leaving him with less and less of a budget for troops no longer capable of active service. When people say Bush is breaking the military, Walter Reed is the poster-child for this claim.

I do hope that Gates will see this mess cleaned up. But you can't keep milking money out of your trama wards in the mild of a US refereed civil war. We've over half a dozen helos shot down this month alone and our casaulties are continuing to climb. Now is not the time to let places like Walter Reed fall into disrepair. Classic mismanagement.

[91B30]

Just for context, please remember that during the last big war we fought troops like this would have been given a medical discharge and sent home with whatever disability pension the VA decided they deserved-and left to deal with the VA for their health care. Instead, they are now being kept on active duty with full pay and benefits and with their care provided by the Army's health care system.

This morning on his blog "http://tcoverride.blogspot.com/ an officer who was treated at WRAMC tells his story. He also takes some of the blame, like a real leader should.

[BobInStamford]

Gotta love it - the flat-earth 28%ers are now trashing the N England Journal of Medicine. But they believe the Moonie Paper (Washington Times) and Fox News. Is it any wonder that all they do is lose wars and elections?? Stay the course, heros!!

[ME]

In 2003.

That was 4 years ago now. That was before the influx of tens of thousands of wounded. That was before funding was cut.

Please, post some more irrelevant "facts" to "not downplay" the issue.

Just admit that GWB's support the troops rhetoric is just that, rhetoric.

[LOL]

dan, do you think america needs universal health care?

[Zifnab]

"dan, do you think america needs universal health care?"

Do you think Congress needs Universal Health Care? Cause they get one of the sweetest packages around. Seems to work for them.

[91B30]

Well, I can see that the point about the system keeping the troops on active duty with pay instead of sending them off to deal with the VA on their own was faithfully ignored. No good deed ever goes unpunished.

[Phoenix]

91B30 - heh. In this case, the good deed is ignored.

[Hard Right]

Just when I think you couldn't be more clueless Bob, you prove me wrong. You think NEJM is credible but FOX isn't? Then you are actually dumb enough to say so! Too funny. Take a look at their gun studies, genius. Try to spin that to fit your delusions.
BTW, I love how you leftists are so threatened by FOX just because they dare to give BOTH sides of an issue. How dare they give any view other than the socialist's religion. Yeah, your kind loves freedom of speech. (roll eyes)

[Rob Kaufman]

Limp Right?? Both sides of an issue??? You mean the president's side and the vice president's side?