John Fund takes a look at government run healthcare as typified by the VA and other single-payer systems.
The veterans’ hospital scandals now in the news in the United States show just how bad things can get when the pressure of patient demand and waiting lists affects bureaucratic behavior.
The efficiency of the Post Office and the bedside manner of the IRS maybe a best-case scenario for Obamacare.
Read the whole thing.
Here’s my story, it’s too long to post here, so I’ll just link to it:
http://thevailspot.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-vas-issues.html
The issues that the VA has are systemic, not isolated. They all revolve back to the simple fact that no one is held accountable for anything…but then that is our government in general and not a particular issue with any single department. They are all incompetent…
Holy smokes!
I married my husband during his first reenlistment in the Navy. We went into PSD the afternoon of the civil ceremony (the 9th of the month) to get me in the system. We miraculously got the first installment of BAH on the 15th.
Fast forward one year, and he reenlists for the second time. We go into PSD that afternoon to do the paperwork and discover that I’m not in the system. His ex-wife is. They had simply reactivated her file, which now that I think of it is probably why we got the BAH so quickly when everyone else we knew at the time was waiting months.
Two years later Portsmouth Naval actively tried to kill our eldest child when she got rotavirus; if I hadn’t had a decent medical background myself I’m not sure what would have happened. A friend of ours, at the time a Navy widow, only got appropriate treatment on her fourth or fifth visit to the clinic because her fiancé, a marine E-8 who had had to carry her into the clinic because she was too ill to walk, intimidated the medical staff into doing their damn jobs. She’d gone in the first time with a simple UTI maybe two weeks earlier, and by the time they actually decided she had something that needed treatment she had to be hospitalized for several days.
There’s a reason we don’t have Tricare Prime. And a reason I refuse to have anything to do with the base clinic here except for the pharmacy.
And don’t get me going on dealing with the Irish National Health system…..
“Oh but 20% of all acute appendectomies get post-op abscesses.” (1978)
“A 30% post-op wound infection rate in unplanned c-sections in this population is similar to that in those with regular pre-natal care.” (Paraphrase from memory of a 2001 Irish medical journal)
That sounds about typical.
I just figure that if that’s how well they treat their active duty members and their families, I don’t want to even think about the care for the retirees.
And of course since I work and the kids go to school, it’s not like we’ve got time to sit at clinics for hours waiting for care. I’m told the local base really isn’t bad, but I don’t want to find out.
Rich, I sent your info and link to your story to Congressman Dave Jolly (a neighbor) after speaking to him about your plight … perhaps he will get something done …
Just spotted your comment on WP…it’s Oct and I’ve not heard from Mr. Jolly, but then I don’t expect to.
Sorry about that. I do note we are now in the same state (we signed a lease on a house in Bay City on Oct. 3)
There is accountability, but only for things that matter to the bureaucracy. Fill out a timesheet with the wrong charge numbers –> federal case. Patient care done poorly or not at all –> meh. As long as procedures are followed and documented, the results are not important to the system.
Reblogged this on Dead Citizen's Rights Society.
I’m currently waiting on an determination on the re-evaluation of my VA disability. My wife and mother hounded me until I finally gave in. We applied for the re-evaluation in 2012. The website tells me it will be finally done…by June 2015. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Since I don’t have outside healthcare, I am dependent on VA medical. If I want to see my Dr. about something it will take over a month to a month and a half to get an appointment. Just to get him on the phone takes more than a week.
I could go on for days about the VA.