What is Wrong With Walter Reed? Socialized Medicine!

Gerry Charlotte Phelps blog ^ | March 5, 2007 | Gerry Phelps

[parousia]

After a firestormerrupted over the scandal at Walter Reed Hospital, the government acted quickly, for a change. Not only was the general in charge of Walter Reed fired, so was his boss, the Secretary of the Army. Congress will have several hearings.

No one expected the torrent of response from millions of vets, about the abysmal government medical care they have suffered for decades. This publicity provides the best chance yet to change that. But when all the publicity is over, will medical care for our veterans just continue as it is?

One sure thing is that Americans do not want their wounded soldiers, Marines, Air Force and sailors treated badly. We are eternally grateful to these wounded young men and women. We want them to get the best of everything, for as long as it takes.

But can our care system for wounded vets be fixed? It is, after all, socialized medicine. It's flaws are the same as socialized medicine in the countries that have it.

As long as we insist on socialized medicine for our vets, that is the kind of care we can expect. But what could we give them instead? How about the kinds of private health insurance most of us have? Paid for by the government? Come to think about it, why doesn't Congress simply provide our wounded vets with the same kind of deluxe medical insurance they voted for themselves?

[parousia]

This scandal is bigger and deeper than anyone could have imagined. Former senior military editor for Knight Ridder, Joseph Galloway, sums up the outrage of how our wounded soldiers are treated. "The Army, in an effort to save money, has been giving soldiers maimed in combat the lowest possible disability ratings. In years when 50,000 troops have been wounded or injured, it's reduced the number of people judged 100 percent disabled to a third of the number who were granted that rating - and the pensions that go with it - in the year before we went to war. In the wake of the latest revelations that wounded and recovering soldiers were being warehoused in miserable barracks at Walter Reed Army Hospital, the Army leaders' first reaction was to punish the ''platoon sergeants'' in charge of those outpatients. Never mind that those platoon sergeants are recovering from war wounds themselves and have had the responsibility for 40 or 50 or 60 other wounded soldiers pawned off on them. When that only generated more outrage, the Army fired the commander of Walter Reed, Maj. Gen. George Weightman, who'd held the job for only six months. Then came the news that the grotesque problems with housing and treatment of those outpatient soldiers - who must wait at Walter Reed for as long as 12 months while the paper pushers process their medical discharges or their return to duty - have gone on for years. They were first reported two years ago by the online magazine Salon, and hospital commanders and congressmen and even Rumsfeld's wife had known"

[OneLoyalAmerican]

But can our care system for wounded vets be fixed? It is, after all, socialized medicine. It's flaws are the same as socialized medicine in the countries that have it.

And my Active Duty counterparts are surprised this Reservist maintains private health care coverage for his family while recalled to Active Duty.

Then again, like most things in life, you get what you pay for.

[Syllojism]

But can our care system for wounded vets be fixed? It is, after all, socialized medicine. It's flaws are the same as socialized medicine in the countries that have it.

Its flaws are worse than in countries with universal socialized health care. Socialized health care is only horrible in countries that also have a large privatized health care center. The socialized programs either only get the worst doctors, or the minimum effort of doctors who are required to take a certain number of public cases a month (not counting idealist doctors who are willing to work for less money for their beliefs, who aren't many). The UK, which functions like that, has much worse problems than Canada, which doesn't have both. The Canadian system also functions much better than America's public systems, like the one being discussed here. (It also surprisingly manages to cost Canadian tax payers fewer tax dollars per capita and a smaller percentage of the GDP than America's health care system, but that's a completely other subject.)

The lesson is don't have both in the same country. It'll just make private care more expensive and public care less effective.