Big Government, Socialism, and the VA

[PoliticalChic]

Mark well the words of Antonio Gramsci, Italian Marxist theoretician and founding member and one-time leader of the Communist Party of Italy, who so correctly said " all life is political."

If your ability to comprehend is limited to only one or two aspects of life at a time, you will be easily led and manipulated.
Every aspect is related to every other...and all are political.






That leads to Larry Kudlow's explanation of the Veterans Administration scandal....



1. "The VA problem is not Shinseki, it’s socialism. The Veterans Affairs health-care system is completely government run. It is a pure single-payer program.... “an island of socialism in American health care.”
.... sack the secretary for Veterans Affairs, Eric Shinseki. But that won’t change a thing.

2. The long waits for treatment, with excessive delays resulting in as many as 40 deaths, are a tragically predictable outcome. This is the result of bureaucratic rationing, price controls, inefficiencies, and the inevitable cover-ups.... bureaucratic incentives ....
[Remember what some of us warned about ObamaCare???]

3. ....the statist VA health-care system, which in so many ways mirrors the government-run health-care problems in Britain, Europe




4. ....vets today deserve an efficient health-care system, not this slip-shod failure. And the only way to do that is to deliver choice and market competition., .... We owe it to our brave veterans.

5. Market competition will control costs and more efficiently distribute services. Profit motive, not run-amok bureaucrats, will discipline the system. Better doctors and health specialists will be attracted to this profit-based system.




6. Don’t tell me the problem is not enough government money. That is nonsense. .... article in Investor’s Business Daily headlined “VA Health Spending Soars as Vets Decline.” .... From 2000 to 2013, VA outlays nearly tripled while the population of veterans declined by 4.3 million. And Medicaid-care spending, which consumes about 40 percent of the VA’s budget, has climbed 193 percent over those years, while the number of patients served by the VA each year went up only 68 percent.

[Big Government is about control and power, not efficiency and savings.]

a. .... 344,000 veterans’ care claims are now backed up and waiting to be processed, that it takes an average of 160 days for health-benefit approval, and that according to VA figures for 2012, veteran appeals face an average wait time of 1,598 days, or more than four years.




7. ...Obama has been talking about fixing the VA. .... he says he’s angry and wants accountability. But he will never understand that the single-payer government-run system is the real problem. The Paul Krugmans of the world and their leftist allies call VA health care a triumph of socialist medicine. Once again we find out that this triumph is a defeat and that socialism doesn’t work.




8. .... Republicans have not stood up for private-sector competition. And the Veterans of Foreign Wars has always opposed market choice and competition. But perhaps this is changing. Senators McCain, Coburn, and Burr are putting forth a reform plan that will give veterans health-care choice for the first time.

9. ..... Obamacare must not become a major step toward single-payer health insurance. Instead, Republicans should fight for thorough Obamacare reform. Get rid of the mandates. Institute real consumer choice. Stop the job-destroying tax and regulatory provisions. And let Americans keep their doctors and insurance plans.

10. This VA scandal is a reminder that government-run single-payer health care does not work. "
Socialism Emerges as Culprit In Scandal of Veterans’ Care - The New York Sun

 

[Edgetho]

The reason the VA scandal could never happen in the Private Sector is obvious to anyone with a brain..... Which leaves out dimocraps.

Think about this for a minute..... What would happen if this occurred in the Private Sector?

1) There would be CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS IMMEDIATELY.

No hemming and hawing, no 'We need to Investigate". People would be cuffed and stuffed within hours of the breaking news.

Who do you think is going to be Jailed for this horror? I doubt anybody will be.

2) The families of the dead would sue the Hospital, the Board of the Hospital, the people on the Board individually, the administrators personally, the people who made the list personally..... And they'd win. They'd take everything they own. IF, they managed to avoid Prison.

But here? The goobermint?

Nothing. No accountability, no lawsuits (try suing the Federal government and talk to me in ten years), no prosecutions, no ---

No nothing, people.

There is no reason for these people to give a flying fuck. So guess what?

They don't.

 

[MACAULAY]

The VA System is a massive beaurecracy funded with unlimited tax payer money, but with its employees fully protected by Public Employee Unions....no amount is enough to secure competency.

Too few people realize the absolute and insoluble link between Public Employee Unions and Socialism.

Maybe the VA debacle will help the blind start to see.

 

[Gadawg73]

Biggest problem at the VA was when Bush started 2 wars without first finding the $$$ and resources to fight them and take care of the warriors during and after the figtht.
Add in the massive amount of fraud in the disability rating system the VA is backlogged in now. Around 50% of all returning and retiring veterans are filing some form of disability.
WWII and Nam vets are outraged about this as it is now taboo to question any veteran about their applications for disability.
Add in the politics of funding with the current big dollar Senate bill that was correctly defeated by Republicans.
And the massive fraud still in the procurement of weapons systems and difficulty of closing long obsolete military bases. Pentagon does not want any more tanks but Congress funds that. The military is now a jobs program that the Pentagon does not need as Republicans and Democrats vote for them.
And when you look at the multi million dollar jobs retired brass get after they leave the Pentagon in the military industrial complex field there you go.
Eisenhower warned us and advised the entire nation go to national health care.
If we were really interested in HEALTH care instead of the massive disease care industry now set up, but that is a related but totally different story.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The reason the VA scandal could never happen in the Private Sector is obvious to anyone with a brain..... Which leaves out dimocraps.

Think about this for a minute..... What would happen if this occurred in the Private Sector?

1) There would be CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS IMMEDIATELY.

No hemming and hawing, no 'We need to Investigate". People would be cuffed and stuffed within hours of the breaking news.

Who do you think is going to be Jailed for this horror? I doubt anybody will be.

2) The families of the dead would sue the Hospital, the Board of the Hospital, the people on the Board individually, the administrators personally, the people who made the list personally..... And they'd win. They'd take everything they own. IF, they managed to avoid Prison.

But here? The goobermint?

Nothing. No accountability, no lawsuits (try suing the Federal government and talk to me in ten years), no prosecutions, no ---

No nothing, people.

There is no reason for these people to give a flying fuck. So guess what?

They don't.

So I guess we should give veterans their benefits in the form of a voucher sufficient to purchase the coverage they need,

maybe through a competitive insurance exchange?

lolol

 

[NYcarbineer]

The Republicans will be proposing a healthcare system for veterans that will look like Obamacare.

Oh, the irony.

 

[bedowin62]

The Republicans will be proposing a healthcare system for veterans that will look like Obamacare.

Oh, the irony.

EXCEPT IT WILL PROBABLY WORK BETTER


you know like Romneycare next to obamacare?

what a joke you are

 

[NYcarbineer]

Veterans who could qualify for Medicaid under the ACA expansion are being denied it in all the conservative states that refused to implement it.

 

[Mac1958]

.

We continue on, sanctioned by both parties, a health care "system" that has five (5) parts:

1. Group/individual
2. Medicare
3. Medicaid
4. VA
5. Indigent care

All separate, very little communication between them.

This, for lack of a better term before I have enough coffee, is FUCKING STUPID.


.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Or, we could go with the Paul Ryan budget proposal, which planned to cut billions from the VA budget.

 

[bedowin62]

Veterans who could qualify for Medicaid under the ACA expansion are being denied it in all the conservative states that refused to implement it.

YAWN


and the idiot drones on with idiotic distortions

shame on states for not wanting billions in unfunded mandates!

ur a joke

 

[NYcarbineer]

The reason the VA scandal could never happen in the Private Sector is obvious to anyone with a brain..... .

Is that why stories like this were fiction?



Elderly Abused at 1 in 3 Nursing Homes: Report


Reports of serious, physical, sexual and verbal abuse are "numerous" among the nation's nursing homes, according to a congressional report released today.

The study, prepared by the minority (Democratic and Independent) staff of the Special Investigations Division of the House Government Reform Committee, finds that 30 percent of nursing homes in the United States — 5,283 facilities — were cited for almost 9,000 instances of abuse over a recent two-year period, from January 1999 to January 2001.

Elderly Abused at 1 in 3 Nursing Homes: Report - ABC News

 

[Edgetho]

Biggest problem at the VA was when Bush started 2 wars without first finding the $$$ and resources to fight them and take care of the warriors during and after the figtht.
Add in the massive amount of fraud in the disability rating system the VA is backlogged in now. Around 50% of all returning and retiring veterans are filing some form of disability.
WWII and Nam vets are outraged about this as it is now taboo to question any veteran about their applications for disability.
Add in the politics of funding with the current big dollar Senate bill that was correctly defeated by Republicans.
And the massive fraud still in the procurement of weapons systems and difficulty of closing long obsolete military bases. Pentagon does not want any more tanks but Congress funds that. The military is now a jobs program that the Pentagon does not need as Republicans and Democrats vote for them.
And when you look at the multi million dollar jobs retired brass get after they leave the Pentagon in the military industrial complex field there you go.
Eisenhower warned us and advised the entire nation go to national health care.
If we were really interested in HEALTH care instead of the massive disease care industry now set up, but that is a related but totally different story.

I'm not going to call you a liar, but you do deserve to be called stupid for getting your lies from the DISGUSTING FILTH in the LSM.

Which is where that absolute FUCKING LIE came from.

Some will argue that the increase in health spending was the direct result of all those wounded warriors coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

But these vets aren’t driving VA costs higher.

A Congressional Budget Office report found that they cost $4,800, on average, in 2010 compared with $8,800 for other veterans who used the system.

It also found that while these Iraq and Afghan vets account for 7% of those treated, they were responsible for only 4% of its health costs.

You don't want to be called stupid? Try getting your 'news' lmao from a source other than the DISGUSTING FILTH in the LSM.

That's some lying motherfuckers. But you spread the lie, so you get called out for it.

Stupid

 

[Edgetho]

VA Health Spending Per Patient Exploded Amid Chronic Treatment Delays - Investors.com

 

[NYcarbineer]

So none of you conservatives object to the idea of transitioning veterans into Obamacare?

 

[NYcarbineer]

VA Health Spending Per Patient Exploded Amid Chronic Treatment Delays - Investors.com

Your chart suggests that the best route would be to expand Medicare to include veterans of any age.

 

[bedowin62]

So none of you conservatives object to the idea of transitioning veterans into Obamacare?

of course we object to it leftard
obamacare is a disaster and wont work

wait until the employer mandate kicks in

ur a joke

 

[Iceweasel]

Biggest problem at the VA was when Bush started 2 wars without first finding the $$$ and resources to fight them and take care of the warriors during and after the figtht.

Oh stop it. The wars were voted on and funded by Congress.

I worked in a VA hospital in the late 70s to early 80s. It was screwed up then and likely before. I also grew up as a military dependent and didn't have exactly the best of care. What I remember most is waiting...and waiting...and waiting. Human nature being what it is folks don't give a rip when you can't fire them.

 

[candycorn]

Biggest problem at the VA was when Bush started 2 wars without first finding the $$$ and resources to fight them and take care of the warriors during and after the figtht.
Add in the massive amount of fraud in the disability rating system the VA is backlogged in now. Around 50% of all returning and retiring veterans are filing some form of disability.
WWII and Nam vets are outraged about this as it is now taboo to question any veteran about their applications for disability.
Add in the politics of funding with the current big dollar Senate bill that was correctly defeated by Republicans.
And the massive fraud still in the procurement of weapons systems and difficulty of closing long obsolete military bases. Pentagon does not want any more tanks but Congress funds that. The military is now a jobs program that the Pentagon does not need as Republicans and Democrats vote for them.
And when you look at the multi million dollar jobs retired brass get after they leave the Pentagon in the military industrial complex field there you go.
Eisenhower warned us and advised the entire nation go to national health care.
If we were really interested in HEALTH care instead of the massive disease care industry now set up, but that is a related but totally different story.

Going from 0 combat vets to 300-700 thousand tends to tax the healthcare system. But since it taints Bush, it can't be the reason.

Now for the upcoming deflection...

 

[ScreamingEagle]

VA Health Spending Per Patient Exploded Amid Chronic Treatment Delays - Investors.com

exactly right it's not about the money....it's about Big Government which does not mix well with quality medical care......bureaucrats who can't be fired become self-serving....

most doctors are familiar with the VA because the VA is connected with medical schools and many get a taste of it during their training....here's what one doctor reveals...

In my experience at VA hospitals in San Antonio and San Diego, patients were seen in clinics that were understaffed and overscheduled. Appointments for X-rays and other tests had to be scheduled months in advance, and longer for surgery. Hospital administrators limited operating time, making sure that work stopped by 3 p.m. Consequently, the physician in charge kept a list of patients who needed surgery and rationed the available slots to those with the most urgent problems.

Scott Barbour, an orthopedic surgeon and a friend, trained at the Miami VA hospital. In an attempt to get more patients onto the operating-room schedule, he enlisted fellow residents to clean the operating rooms between cases and transport patients from their rooms into the surgical suites. Instead of offering praise for their industriousness, the chief of surgery reprimanded the doctors and put a stop to their actions. From his perspective, they were not solving a problem but were making federal workers look bad, and creating more work for others, like nurses, who had to take care of more post-op patients.

At the VA hospital in St. Louis, urologist Michael Packer, a former partner of mine, had difficulty getting charts from the medical records department. He and another resident hunted them down themselves. It was easier for department workers to say that they couldn't find a chart than to go through the trouble of looking. Without these records, patients could not receive care, which was an unacceptable situation to these doctors. Not long after they began doing this, they were warned to stand down.

There are thousands of other stories just like these.

Blog: Doctor reveals the VA Hospitals' real problem

people need to realize that Obama plans for everybody to get 'VA' medical care....