The problems with the VA are structural

Larry Kudlow:
The VA problem is not Shinseki; it's socialism. The Veterans Affairs health care system is completely government run. It is a pure single-payer program. National Review Editor Rich Lowry calls it "an island of socialism in American health care." He is right. I've been arguing this all week.

So perhaps Democrats and Republicans will get together to sack VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. But that won't change a thing. In fact, it's a distraction.

The long waits for treatment, with excessive delays resulting in as many as 40 deaths, are a tragically predictable outcome. This is the result of bureaucratic rationing, price controls, inefficiencies and the inevitable cover-ups. It was the late James Buchanan, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, who taught us all about bureaucratic incentives in his seminal work on public choice.

So if Congress thinks it can find somebody who can tame the VA bureaucracy, it should go right ahead. But the statist VA health care system, which in so many ways mirrors the government-run health care problems in Britain, Europe and Canada, must be completely changed.

We owe it to our brave veterans. Think of it on the eve on the Memorial Day, when we honor all of our veterans who fought bravely for our freedom. Returning vets today deserve an efficient health care system, not this slip-shod failure. And the only way to do that is to deliver choice and market competition.

Market competition will control costs and more efficiently distribute services. Profit motive, not run-amok bureaucrats, will discipline the system. Better doctors and health specialists will be attracted to this profit-based system. And our veterans at long last will get the medical care they deserve.

Don't tell me the problem is not enough government money. That is nonsense. Everyone should go read John Merline's article in Investor's Business Daily headlined "VA Health Spending Soars as Vets Decline." Here are some of his numbers: From 2000 to 2013, VA outlays nearly tripled while the population of veterans declined by 4.3 million. And Medicaid-care spending, which consumes about 40 percent of the VA's budget, has climbed 193 percent over those years, while the number of patients served by the VA each year went up only 68 percent.
...
There is more.

Democrats can never admit the VA's structural failures because they want more such control over all our healthcare.  They should be forced to forced to face reality and make drastic changes that go beyond Gen. Shinseki's lack of ability.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more