Posted on 04/24/2019 10:41:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
As a follow-up to our post yesterday about the extreme recklessness of trying to expand a healthcare program that's already staring insolvency in the face, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is touting an infamously flawed government healthcare program -- the VA -- as another model for expansion. 'VA for all,' is the idea, apparently, with its mouthpiece evidently unaware of what a dreadful idea and message this is. Extraordinary:
Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claims that the VA provides the "highest quality of [health]care" to veterans, says: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" pic.twitter.com/bYFEprdYRS— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 22, 2019
As we've learned from scandal after scandal, the VA has been systemically broken and dysfunctional for years. It has been rife with long wait lists, corrupt cover-ups, substandard care, and lack of accountability. Noah Rothman makes the case that AOC's ignorance on this issue should disqualify her as a remotely serious policy voice on healthcare matters, pointing to multiple devastating examples of entrenched failures at the agency she's fulsomely praised:
VA hospitals around the country have been implicated in scandals involving rationed services and unresponsive administrators. In Washington D.C., patients were given “prolonged or unnecessary anesthesia” while medical staff searched for missing medical equipment. Care is routinely delayed or denied, and incompetence in at least one facility resulted in “unnecessary risk” for patients “and resulted in a breakdown of core services.” In Texas, former VA doctors have accused the department of denying colonoscopies for cancer patients, jeopardizing veterans’ access to non-VA specialists by slow-walking reimbursements, and engaging in precisely the same manipulation of data relating to wait times that plagued the Phoenix facility (where 40 veterans died while awaiting medical appointments). Another effort to falsify the wait times veterans faced was uncovered in Colorado.
In Illinois, a culture deemed dismissive toward patient safety was blamed for unnecessary deaths. In New Hampshire, dangerous conditions, including a fly-ridden operating room, resulted in canceled surgeries. And in Tennessee, tissue was mishandled, unnecessary amputations were performed, and patients with life-threatening and acute conditions were forced to leave the premises to find emergency care at private facilities that actually functioned like hospitals. From Kansas to Missouri, the wait-time scandal cost veterans the care they needed at non-VA facilities to which veterans who face wait times over 30 days are legally allowed to appeal. When the Phoenix VA scandal broke, it engulfed Barack Obama’s government and eventually took VA Sec. Eric Shinseki down with it.
A 2018 Inspector General's report was damning, and veterans have continued to be victimized by chronic "lapses in patient care and dangerous conditions," while formal complaints from VA employees about problems at their facilities doubled between 2013 and 2016. Under fire for her cavalier and uninformed "if it ain't broke" hot take, AOC is predictably pretending that the VA is woefully under-funded:
It's budget is $200B. It's not the money that's the problem. Its what a government that answers to no one does with it. https://t.co/BSg6CuVV5x— Emily Zanotti (@emzanotti) April 23, 2019
But as we've repeatedly discovered, throwing money at a problem -- at this exact problem, in fact -- does not necessarily improve outcomes:
A commission tasked by Congress with trying to fix the troubled Veterans Health Administration has just concluded a damning report, finding that "many profound deficiencies" at the troubled agency "require urgent reform." The commissioners conclude, "America's veterans deserve a better organized, high-performing health care system." The report indicates the billions pumped into the VA since the wait-list scandal erupted two years ago have failed to relieve many of the problems in delivering health care to veterans. In some cases, the report points out where so-called improvements to the VA system may have actually made things worse.
The VA's abuses are not a product of being "starved." The VA's budget nearly tripled between 2000 and 2012. They're a product of government waste and ineptitude. 'VA for all,' indeed. How does this sound to you, America?
More than 300,000 American military veterans likely died while waiting for health care -- and nearly twice as many are still waiting -- according to a new Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general report. The IG report says “serious” problems with enrollment data are making it impossible to determine exactly how many veterans are actively seeking health care from the VA, and how many were.
I'll leave you with the following question: As a policy-driving thought leader on the New Left, what might AOC (and her pal Ilhan Omar) think of this idea?
WATCH: @BernieSanders says convicted criminals – and even terrorists like the Boston Marathon bomber – should be allowed to vote.
The socialist lost even CNN with this one... pic.twitter.com/8q7AGKMOj9— BlazeTV (@BlazeTV) April 23, 2019
You know, the ones that eat tide pods and are confused about their gender.
The VA is designed to be a benefit to those who serve. It is best seen as deferred pay for placing life and limb in jeopardy or in remote locations separated from normal American life.
So, as a promise to compensate for pay and hardship, it is important that it be efficient and quality care.
Many employers have health insurance as part of their pay package and do a good part of it.
[ Oh man will that get a lot of votes from the cell phone cat video generation. ]
It’s unreal, the rank stupidity at Yahoo. While a lot of folks are catching on, there are still some who believe the Russia lie, they believe they’re doing God’s work with homosexual marriage, have no problems with wholesale abortion, and love any other lie that Yahoo shoves down their throats.
I can only assume this is the beginning of Strong Delusion.
And yes, I’ve seen more than a few that LOVE that AOC is “upsetting old, white males”.
Yes, they truly ARE that stupid.
Holy cow. Sorry to hear. Hope things work out for you.
If this were enacted we’d have less doctors. VA and military both have doctor shortages.
Yeah, I like that one.
Henny Youngman: My wife told me to take out the garbage. I said, you cooked it, you take it out!
Is still play Doctor with her
"The Only Thing You Couldn't Catch From Her Is A Ride To Church"
They have decided that multi-use drugs are actually single use lifestyle drugs. They aren't. We are having to pay OOP for a couple of drugs already. Sorry no, just going on a bland diet does not cure gastro-reflux. The darn flap does not work correctly. And having lost one family member to cancer of the esophagus I have no wish to be the next one.
“She could possibly be of some use as a stick to probe for land mines.”
With those teeth she could scare the enemy away!
“She doesn’t look like she’s having fun anymore”
Ahh, but doesn’t she look like she’d be so much fun to be around? I would rather spend an evening with a charmer like her than to be eaten alive by crocodiles, well on second thought maybe not.
Barrett’s Esophagus is a Pre-Cancer, the Gastro was biopsying every 2 yrs, now every 3 yrs. These new drugs coming out have shorter test periods and a lot less test subjects. 13 is NOT a Study, 1 was down as low as 3 people.
OA drugs ruined my GI tract, I’ve already eliminated all foods that don’t digest. Which means FIBER foods. So many meds cause Reflux too. Hypertension drugs will in 1 or 2 pills.
This $1,000 Tens unit you stick up your nose to open the oil glands in your eye lids had been tested on 145, 1 dropped out for Migraines, some had nose bleeds and face Pain. Tricare doesn’t cover that. Nor the $3,000 Lip-a-Flo treatment.
A rice or buck wheat hull back you can toss in the microwave for 120 seconds, with a wet cool wash cloth will do the exact same thing under $3.00. To keep infections down use Aveeno Baby shampoo in a P sample bottle size unit half full of shampoo and 8 drops of Tea Tree Oil. Wash eyelids daily, rinse with cool water till clear. Then put in lubricant eye drops.
We now have to be our own doctors.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.