Posted on 01/12/2019 10:08:06 AM PST by Theoria
The Department of Veterans Affairs is preparing to shift billions of dollars from government-run veterans’ hospitals to private health care providers, setting the stage for the biggest transformation of the veterans’ medical system in a generation.
Under proposed guidelines, it would be easier for veterans to receive care in privately run hospitals and have the government pay for it. Veterans would also be allowed access to a system of proposed walk-in clinics, which would serve as a bridge between V.A. emergency rooms and private providers, and would require co-pays for treatment.
Veterans’ hospitals, which treat seven million patients annually, have struggled to see patients on time in recent years, hit by a double crush of returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and aging Vietnam veterans. A scandal over hidden waiting lists in 2014 sent Congress searching for fixes, and in the years since, Republicans have pushed to send veterans to the private sector, while Democrats have favored increasing the number of doctors in the V.A.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Yeah, I’m a group 5.
Came Obama and Obamacare I had to turn to the VA.
I suspect a LOT of the VA’s increase in expenses came from Obamacare’s MUST HAVE insurance requirement. I had been perfectly happy getting care from a local clinic after I lost my insurance from work.
I notice VA gets nothing from MEDICARE B which I pay for. Seems like they should. I expected they would.
Ultimately of course,, we were promised healthcare when we joined.
As a veteran of 30 years of financial management in "for profit" hospital corporations, I know first hand that it is quite possible to exchange substandard care in the public sector for substandard care in the private sector. Do not assume that the private will necessarily be better as long as it is paid for by the federal government on a low bid basis.
Wait! You say veterans cannot use the VA unless their problems are more than 30% service-connected?
Good. Vets should come first, receive highest priority.
Yes, but those kinds of ratings are based upon a lot of non-clinical factors - such as the amount of research funding they receive. To be honest, UCSF struggles clinically in a lot of areas currently, as their volume for multiple disciplines and procedures has been diverted to other competing hospitals. For example, in a recent year the Kaiser hospital in SF performed 373 coronary artery bypass surgeries, while in the same year UCSF performed 89.
VA has a income cap for those who fall between the cracks. $38k SINGLE. Other than that it’s private care through either Tricare Prime or Life depending on age, unless Service Connected. They already Farm out many procedures. While they did hubbies hearing aids, and pulled the 5 teeth he had left both Service connected injury, our Private Dentist was contracted to make the dentures. He’s a Ret. Army Res. Dentist, 2 tours the M.E. 1 each war zone.
Tricare Life is 2nd to Medicare.
“No veteran should be treated in the VA medical system unless their condition is specifically service connected.”
I not only agree with you, but as a Cat 1 Vet I have my own insurance, medicare and go to private facilities simply because private health care is by far superior to VA.
But an argument can be made to give all honorably discharged VA health care. I have no proof or links of this, but I recall during the tail end of the Vietnam war when the all volunteer Army got going, it was a promise to include VA health care for all, which is what created this current tiered system.
If America wants to keep fighting these endless, winless wars and expect good American men and women to join up and risk their lives, there must be some incentives. If the swamp can afford the military/industrial complex’s ever so expensive war machinery and supplies, then the swamp can take care of those that get shot at, whether they get wounded or not.
It’s no longer a WWII scenario where our nation itself is at stake and it’s everyone’s duty to step forward.
“Wait! You say veterans cannot use the VA unless their problems are more than 30% service-connected?”
No.
https://www.payingforseniorcare.com/longtermcare/resources/veterans_priority_groups.html
Anyone in the system can get on a wait list and get care for non-connected conditions. If they have other insurance, it will be billed.
The NYT is a local newspaper written for NYC’s “limousine” liberals. WaPo is a local paper for DC bureaucrats. Why would you give either any credence?
Still, those teaching surgeons donate their time to the VA,
And they are really good.
Procedures done at the VA facility.
while Democrats have favored increasing the number of FOREIGN doctors in the V.A. fixed.
Hopefully when they talk of “private care” doesn’t mean going through a middleman health care administrator such as UHC or Anthem. These middlemen are making a fortune on 0-care gaming the system by denying care. There are one of the major reasons that healthcare quality has declined. They don’t insure, they just administer. Just look at their stock prices since 0-care, and the drop they sustained when O’Conner ruled against 0-care (even with no injunction).
If the VA needs specific treatment for vets such as surgery, oncology, cardiology or any speciality care, the VA can use primary care physicians and speciality advisors, administrators to develop their protocols for referrals. Then, they can refer and directly contract out for services with hospitals and individual providers for service. This way, the VA providers can have a direct check on quality and cost. If the contractor is bad or too expensive, they can look for another one.
They don’t ‘donate’ their time. It’s part of their academic employment. Academic hospitals with VA affiliates have a deal with the VA to provide a specific amount of man hours and coverage. For this, the VA allows the academic center to send medical students, residents, and fellows to the VA. I’m not being critical, at all, and I’m sure those surgeons do outstanding work at the VA. Personally, I like that model for staffing VA hospitals much more than having the VA hire primarily foreign medical graduates.
Any Vet who has tried in insane vain to navigate the mess that is the VA phone system has to deal with those above.
Most stereotypes are indeed true.
There are many who disagree with you. I am not one of them. The system is abused. Many one-hitch vets leech off the system rather than take the responsibility of providing for their own health care after choosing to leave the service.
I am conflicted also. Received good care at the VA Hospital but it was just to far away and there treatment plan was truly inconvenient and seemed like it was a medical “assembly line”. The diagnosis procedures are glacial.
The VA missed my bladder cancer and only by luck getting into the Choice program did I get a proper diagnosis from a local urologist. Just in time. Probably saved my life or certainly more drastic procedures.
Local hospital got right on it with chemo and radiation and got rid of it. I’m not so sure the VA would have been as through or compassionate. I can never prove it but I’m sure in my mind it was Agent Orange related.
I am very thankful for the Choice Program and with virtually no problem navigating the system.
Even though eligibility for VA medical care was used as an armed forces recruitment incentive for many years, and probably still is?
For a vet who has no insurance, they receive VA medical care for non-service connected problems either free, or with a co-payment depending on income.
The Houston VA told me they don’t flush the dye out after placing stents in heart arteries. Bottom line I was told to prepare for kidney dialysis.
I was trying to hang on until my medicare to kicked end. God decided I wouldn’t wait and I crashed and burned in Little Rock and went to the ER at the VA there.
An Iranian doctor there was working on a procedure where dye is put in, a “picture” is taken then the dye is flushed out. The cardiologist then goes in blind and inserts the stents.
I left there in better shape I’d been in for 10 years.
A few months later I learned the doctor was being told her visa was up and she would have to go back to Iran 6 months before finishing her studies.
I started calling people and telling them this woman saved my life and she should be allowed to stay here to finish her studies and save a few more veterans’ lives. The congressman’s office in Little Rock jumped on it. She got the extension she needed.
She told me not long ago that she had performed the procedure on 8 veterans sinse me .. all successful”.
A janitor in Little Rock told me “We don’t need more workers. We meed more workers who give a damn”.
Thanks for making the effort.
And always nice to hear of a bureaucracy forced to do right!
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