VA The Best!
Wow. This just in: The VA is the best. Check out this Time Magazine Article: “How VA Hospitals Became The Best”. It totally makes sense:
- The system is self-contained. The technology need not integrate with outside systems and all patient information is available inside.
- The VA has patients for life; so it is in their best interest to invest heavily in preventative medicine.
Here’s a good bit at the end of the article:
…conservatives fear such an arrangement would be a Trojan horse, setting up an even larger national health-care program and taking more business from the private sector. Congress has no plans to enlarge the scope of veterans’ health care–much less consider it a model for, say, a government-run system serving nonvets. But it’s becoming more and more “ideologically inconvenient for some to have such a stellar health-delivery system being run by the government,” says Margaret O’Kane, president of the National Committee for Quality Assurance, which rates health plans for businesses and individuals. If VA health care continues to be the industry leader, it may become more difficult to argue that the market can do better.
Now if they could just figure out how to keep certain roommate patients from pulling their own IVs and flinging blood around, everything would be perfect. (Bring back memories MR?)
September 7th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
I’m getting mixed signals about V.A. from friends. …..Would like to hear more from vets out there.
September 8th, 2006 at 8:52 am
Except for the comments in Jek’s post about my short stay in the VA hospital, and me showing up for the surgery and the doc calling in sick causing a week postponement, I’ve had no problems with getting excellent care on a timely basis….. If you need to see a specialist, they’re in-house….. You have a “Primary Care Physician”, but usually you end-up seeing numerous other specialists depending on the need of the patient….. I am currently seeing two other doctors besides my PCP….. The great thing is that they all have immediate access to all information concerning your medications, what treatments you’ve been given from other doctors, etc…… I can’t knock them in anyway and I believe that I might possibly be alive today due to the “preventive care” provided by the VA……
September 14th, 2006 at 2:02 am
Jek, I don’t think the conservatives have anything to worry about. About a dozen years ago, Hillary Clinton offered a plan that would make health insurance more affordable for all Americans, but the neocons and the insurance weazels convinced us that we would be a bunch of pinko commies if we accepted this gift. I was an employee of the federal government for over thirty years, and during that time, people were constantly telling me how lucky I was to be covered by the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan, which is what the Clinton plan was based on, and oddly enough, seems to be good enough for members of congress.