VA is Single Payer

Some time ago I, along with others, warned about how bad an idea it was to have the federal government running the the health care system in this country. The example that I used was the VA system which is totally run and funded by the federal government. I argued at the time that based on my own experiences at the VA that this was going to be an unmitigated disaster shoved onto the backs of Americans from a government that can't keep the post office running and has a multitude of inefficient bureaucratic heavy agencies that have all but bankrupted this country.

Now, in the last few weeks, the American public has finally gotten to see, and hear, just part of the nightmare that the VA has become to those of us whose only option is to use one of those facilities.

At last count, and this number seems to grow daily, there are 26 VA hospitals being investigated for everything, including the secret “death lists.”

I personally have not seen these death lists but I can tell you, again, from my own experience, that it certainly seems like they have lists for a whole lot of things.

Here's just one small example. Eleven years ago, right after I returned from my tour in Iraq, and before being discharged I had to have a physical done. In the course of that physical it was determined that I had pieces of bone floating in my foot as well as a cracked knee cap from a rather unfortunate incident with an explosion. There were other injuries as well but for the sake of brevity, I will keep it to the two afore mentioned injuries, and the fall that came with it. As of today nothing has been done about it, even though it was acknowledged in further exams by the VA, in fact it is buried so deep in my records that I have essentially given up on it. While it hurts it's not life threatening.

So, here is my question for you; If the government can't handle the needs of disabled veterans that make up about one half of one percent of the total American population and they go out of their way to hide, and doctor , records, how in the name of Pete do you think they are going to be able to handle 330 million people?They can't, and what you are seeing, courtesy of the VA, is just a small taste of whats to come to everyone.

This my friends is what single payer looks like in the US. I can't speak to other countries medical systems but I do know that our government is too corrupt and incompetent to take on such a massive plan.

Here is another question; if we are spending 158 billion dollars a year on the VA ,which has proven itself to be a bureaucratic heavy entity and has been caught in fraud and massive spending bonuses to failing bureaucracy, this while poorly covering the ½ percent of Americans who have served, what do you think it's going to cost when you add the other 99.5 of the American population to the equation?

This is a government that can't balance a check book and we are willingly giving them 17 percent of the economy to control? These are the people who you want, the people making their revised death lists and waiting lists, to control your health care? Do you really want to wait months or years for medical treatment only to discover it's too late?

This is what the American health system is going to turn into and this is what single payer is going to become. I will agree that we have to do something to fix some of the inequity that has existed in our health care system but handing the control of it over to the government is a recipe not just for fiscal disaster but also physical disaster for all of us who value our health. The VA will prove to be just the tip of the iceberg.