BS just fix the stoooopid system
I like the idea.
Why should the medical side of the VA exist, except as a support group to enable veterans to share solutions? At least offer the option.
Eventually, the better providers will be discovered and shared by VA members, who now have the means to access.
I went through something similar with prostate cancer and ended up moving to where the best providers are, via support group knowledge.
Close the vast majority of VA Facilities, except those specialty facilities for military specific treatments.
Then make every vet eligible, at uncontrolled market rates, to access the plethora of HMO's and Private plans with the VA slate of benefits.
The same 8 or 9 tiers of service and access could still be applied to those commercial plans.
1. Purple Heart Disabled.
Honorably Discharged with Service Connected Disability of 50%+. Both without restriction, everything covered, no deductibles or co-pays.
Move down from there.
The thesis here is that the people who have the ability to engineer the system such that it takes advantage of “off the shelf” (eg; existing, inexpensive) solutions for something have absolutely ZERO interest in doing anything of the sort. They are not spending their money! The more people implanted into a bureaucracy underneath them, the more secure their (now more senior) positions become. The more studies are undertaken, the more important they therefore must be. There is no interest in “saving money”. There is as much interest in saving money as you and I have in growing warts.
HSA accounts would be owned by the veterans with full control of how they spend the money. It is their own money.