VA Scandals Raise The Specter Of Healthcare Rationing

[bonnie]

Interesting that the president once again has to get his facts from the media.

VA Scandals Raise The Specter Of Healthcare Rationing

Whistleblowers within the Veterans’ Administration health system are coming forward with tales of brutal disregard for the health and life of those who served our country. Allegations of extensive wait times for lifesaving care, deaths while waiting, and horrific mismanagement have triggered outrage.

Unfortunately, the VA abuses are just the tip of a much larger, more menacing iceberg. The iceberg is covert health care rationing, and it’s inherent in single-payer systems like the VA.

The obvious question to ask about the VA scandal is: Why? Why would a VA hospital administrator direct doctors not to perform colonoscopies until patients had three positive tests for bloody stools? Or why were VA employees ordered to “cook the books” and hide long wait times that veterans faced when seeking care from heart, cancer, or other specialists? Why did some VA administrators go so far as to create a secret waiting list to hide year-plus wait times?

There’s only one plausible answer to these questions: rationing. The VA is but a smaller version of the sort of government-run, single-payer health care with which the political left is so enamored.

When individuals receive care through the VA, it becomes the only payer and hence, the only decision-maker. The VA decides who gets care, when, and how much. Moreover, as the single payer, the VA bears the risk of loss: If tax dollars aren’t enough to pay for the care demanded, there’s only one result — rationing of care.

Rationing care can take many forms. It can be overt, like the Canadian or British health care systems, which have unambiguous, publicly-announced waiting times and coverage denials for certain procedures. Or rationing can be more subtle, with little or no public participation. This latter, covert form of rationing is what the VA has adopted.

Covert rationing appears to be the only form of rationing that’s politically palatable to Congress. Another example is the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), the so-called “death panel” created by Obamacare. Congress charged IPAB with cutting Medicare spending below certain levels, without reducing Medicare benefits or increasing beneficiary cost-sharing.

The only way to achieve IPAB’s lofty goal, as Congress surely understood, is to reduce payments to hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers. As providers make less money per patient, there will be fewer providers willing to accept Medicare beneficiaries, and waiting times will inevitably rise. Increasing waiting times, as VA executives well know, is a subtle but effective form of rationing.

Many on the political left argue that since tax dollars for health care are limited, rationing is inevitable, so we shouldn’t worry too much about what form it takes. If everyone has access to health care, the argument goes, it doesn’t really matter that some are getting less overall care. Don’t fall for this straw man.

While it’s true that health care demand always outstrips supply, this concession doesn’t imply that government-run, single-payer health care is inevitable, or a good thing; quite the contrary. The abuses experienced in the VA system are endemic to all single-payer systems.

When government has a monopoly on the provision of health care, patients lose. They lose because they cannot escape. They have no viable alternative choice.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/15/va-sca.../#ixzz32ST9LQRA

[phkrause]

BONNIE

thank you for posting this article yes something needs to be fix for sure

dgrimm60

dgrimm, when I got out of the army in '68, a lot of my buddies who got out with me said the same thing!! Here we are 46 years later and still we are asking the same questions! But this time we're trying to blame someone or thing, and saying this is the problem!!!!! Well in that case I'd like to know who was to blame in "68, '69, etc., etc., etc.???????? The answer is: "The Government" period, not this person or that person, This healthcare plan or that healthcare plan. Many Vietnam Vets are still not getting better care now or than. And there are Nam vets that are getting better care today than before.

[bonnie]

when I got out of the army in '68, a lot of my buddies who got out with me said the same thing!! Here we are 46 years later and still we are asking the same questions! But this time we're trying to blame someone or thing, and saying this is the problem!!!!! Well in that case I'd like to know who was to blame in "68, '69, etc., etc., etc.???????? The answer is: "The Government" period, not this person or that person, This healthcare plan or that healthcare plan. Many Vietnam Vets are still not getting better care now or than. And there are Nam vets that are getting better care today than before.

My BIL spent the last two decades in the VA hospital.While there were some issues overall his care was good.

There are still those that believe we can do more or the same with less and expect quality care to continue which is what this article was about.Or those that usually say,So What,that is the way it has always been.

U ntil you have need of certain services most don 't realize that rationing and the cuts to medicare are already having an impact.

The mother of a friend of mine very recently passed away.

She used hospice for her father and had excellent service and care.When the time came for her mother to use the services of hospice,she had a very unpleasant surprise in the services no longer available and new restrictions.Hospice did not tell her it has always been this way. They did tell her that as a result of Obamacare and medicare cuts this was the best they could do.

After Obama insisted Obamacare's would not touch guaranteed medicare benefits.

I provide services to parents of special needs adult children.The access and help available to them is shrinking as well.And no,this is not the way it has always been. Some parents are facing putting their family member is a facility

They can't cope without the help.The cost will b e far greater and availability a lot less as time goes on. The reason given is Obamacare and the 716 billion dollars in cuts

[phkrause]

The first sensible statement on this situation:

Pat Buchanan to Newsmax: VA Needs 'Complete Overhaul'

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Pat-Buc...o_code=lnkogpvq

This is exactly what I've been saying ever since I got out of the Army!!!!! And that's been over 40 years ago. This problem has been with us for a long time. But we'd rather but blame on a particular party/person rather than a VA that's been damaged for years.

[bonnie]

The first sensible statement on this situation:

Pat Buchanan to Newsmax: VA Needs 'Complete Overhaul'

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Pat-Buc...o_code=lnkogpvq

This is exactly what I've been saying ever since I got out of the Army!!!!! And that's been over 40 years ago. This problem has been with us for a long time. But we'd rather but blame on a particular party/person rather than a VA that's been damaged for years.

That statement does not address the title of this thread

VA Scandals Raise The Specter Of Healthcare Rationing

[joeb]

The first sensible statement on this situation:

Pat Buchanan to Newsmax: VA Needs 'Complete Overhaul'

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Pat-Buc...o_code=lnkogpvq

This is exactly what I've been saying ever since I got out of the Army!!!!! And that's been over 40 years ago. This problem has been with us for a long time. But we'd rather but blame on a particular party/person rather than a VA that's been damaged for years.

I think the point of Bonnie's thread is to point out the failing of Obama's solution to everything: more government.

When was the last time you thought about government solutions to problems and the first things that came to mind were greater effiency, greater flexibility, greater individual freedom in handling problems, less corruption, and less bureaucracy? Any time there is more centralized control of anything the result is just the opposite of the things I listed above.

Of course the VA is screwed up and has been for a long time. It's a government bureaucracy. You cannot point to a government bureaucracy that isn't all screwed up. One simply doesn't exist. Being all screwed up and being a government bureaucracy go hand-in-hand.d

I worked for the VA for a year back in the 90's. It was my introduction to working for the government after working in the private marketplace all my life. I couldn't believe it. I worked in plant maintenance and at least half the people that worked in there could never have made it working for a private company. They would have gotten fired after a day or two because they simply wouldn't work, or didn't have the skills to do the job they had been hired to do. What was the VA's solution? Bring in outside contractors, you know, the people working in the private marketplace who worked hard and had the skills to do the job or they didn't have a job, to do the work. IOWs, the VA was paying twice to do the same work, once to pay their employees and once to pay the people who actually did the work.

It was like that in everything to do with maintenance. Go into town and have someone fabricate something that we didn't have the tools to do, and if it wasn't done right instead of taking it back and saying make it right they would just pay to have it done twice, or three times, or however many times it took to get the part right. It was ridiculous. They held no one accountable for anything.

We had maintenance people who did nothing but carry their tool belt around, talk to people, and then come back to the shop at the end of the day and fill out paperwork like they had actually done something. I did maintenance jobs there that the paperwork said had been done once every six months for the last 20 years, but hadn't actually ever been done. It was the only time I ever saw a condensate drip pan on a refrigeration unit filled to the brim with slime. It was a 2" deep pan that the paperwork said had been cleaned every 6 months, but yet was full of slime. That unit was in the meat cooler for the cafeteria. It was a huge safety issue, and they wondered why people were getting food-borne illnesses. You think anyone cared? I was the only one who gave a rip.... My supervisor laughed when I showed him the pan full of slime.

[bonnie]

I would think the title would be self explanatory.

This rush to absolve Obama overshadows everything else. Bush was responsible for what he did,his lack,what he did right when he was president. One thing I will give Bush and former presidents it was not this idiotic,"Well I get my news just like you do,the media" from the president of the US.

Now by some mysterious liberal math we can add millions more to a already stressed system,and not only have better health care but cheaper as well.

The one thing Obama has said that made sense was a day late and a dollar short.

Those complaining they could no longer afford insurance under

Obamacare were told to get their priorities straight.Such as getting rid of ipads,smartphones,internet,cable etc.

Maybe those draining the system as others pay for their care should have been told that years ago