VA Fears Opening ‘Floodgates’ to Private Care

Military.com ^ | July 17, 2014 | Tom Philpott

[2ndDivisionVet]

MILITARY UPDATE: VA Asks Hill Not To Open ‘Floodgates’ to Private Care.

The ambitious push by Congress and its veteran affairs committees to swiftly solve a health care wait-time crisis for tens of thousands of veterans by granting access to private sector care appears to have run hard aground.

After four weeks, House-Senate conferees, working through their staffs to iron out differences in separate veteran health reform bills, need some major breakthroughs, according to lawmakers and staff.

“I am very concerned that this conference committee will end up taking a step backward for veterans’ health care in this country,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mt.). “That cannot happen. Veterans deserve better.”

Worries center on the showpiece of both bills: that VA for two years will make private sector care available to veterans if they face waits for VA care longer than 30 days or live more than 40 miles from a VA care facility.

The trouble goes beyond costs, though they are considerable. Lawmakers negotiating a final deal appear only now to be learning the challenges for veterans to access civilian care, and the need for VA to have the resources to monitor and coordinate expansion of purchased care.

The unease among lawmakers surfaced during a Wednesday hearing of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee where Acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson presented the VA’s longer-term plan to improve access to care....

[2ndDivisionVet]

That's single-payer for you.

[4Liberty]

Rats - enemies of efficiency & quality service.
friends- of other Rats.

[nathanbedford]

“We have not historically managed to requirements. We have managed to a budget number” regardless of actual need. “And the veterans wound up being the shock absorbers in that process,” Gibson said.

No one seriously argues that the budget process is not broken. Conservatives know that it is the victim of politicians playing politics rather than addressing problems. Until the postwar era ended September 11, 2001, the growing American economy could simply make up for the misfeasance of our politicians who, after all, are only pandering to the people.

But our economy can no longer compensate for these self deceptions by which we govern ourselves. Detroit is an obvious example on the municipal level of a governmental entity that could not govern itself, resorted to self deception, and now cannot pay its water bill. The VA administration offers an example on the federal level. The reckoning is coming to the whole of America just as it came to Detroit.

[Jim from C-Town]

I think that is the point. I have never understood the entire idea of the VA medical system. Why on Earth build a separate system strictly for vets when a system already exists and simply needs to be accessed?

Of course the reason is patronage jobs. Lots and lots of connected people make above average salaries at the VA.

The wages for nurses at the VA are around 40% higher than the wages for similar positions in private hospitals. The same is true for all the VA employees.

A registered nurse makes an average annual salary of around $55,000 per year. Where average salaries for V.A. Nurses are $77,000. That does NOT include benefits. That is $37 an hour VS. $26 hr.

Give all VA eligible vets a voucher and shut down the VA medical system. It is a failure and an expensive one at that.

[Flick Lives]

How come the government is not worried about the flood of illegals and is in fact encouraging them, but they want to thwart helping vets?

[2ndDivisionVet]

Your question answers itself.

[blueplum]

a step backward for veterans’ health care in this country,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mt.). “That cannot happen. Veterans deserve better.”

is Tester admitting that Obamacare sucks eggs? or is he worried that the level of care in the civilian sector would be an embarrassing comparison to the level of care at the VA?

[Wage Slave]

We need the money to pay welfare baby factories to keep popping out Democrat voters.

[kevslisababy]

They are already trying to force them into obamacare, which in theory is “private” doctors. What hypocrites !

[GailA]

WHY? the care is NO better in the private sector than the VA. I can vouch for that with the 3 hospitals stays I’ve had in the past 3 yrs. Takes weeks to get in to see your doctor if a sudden illness occurs.

Might as well head for a ER only way you will get treatment, and you can only pray it will be a AMERICAN doctor, not a ME MALE doc with a hang up about Female patients. That was my last trip BTW. They blew 3 well hydrated viable veins on first stick, 4th held over night, 5th about to blow before I was discharged after 3 days of BAD and slow responding care. ME male doc would not talk to me, only my husband. And you got the privilege of MOOCH’s INEDIBLE FOOD PLAN which is now in our Hospitals.

When a 20 yr Ret Military SCPO tells you it taste like crap, you know it does. Thank God for Burger King and Subway. Or I’d have gone hungry. NO way was I eating that crap.

I walked out of the RENDEZVOUS restaurant in Memphis last Thurs night. left my husband and 4 other people.
I was served COLD, TOUGH, Where’s the MEAT, greasy ribs, with ‘baked’ beans...open can of pork and beans add BBQ sauce, and soupy mustard coleslaw. Served on paper plates with plastic utensils. This is the same famous restaurant GWB took that Elvis crazy Japanese guy.

Went down the street to Huey’s and bought a great Hot, juicy, hamburger and FF. The Rendezvous would fail Chef Robert Irvin’s review of their food and service.