The VA’s Socialist Paradise

Politico ^ | 22 May 2014 | RICH LOWRY

[mandaladon]

For the left, the Department of Veterans Affairs is how health care is ideally supposed to work. No insurance companies, no private doctors, no competition — just the government and the patient.

Paul Krugman, The New York Times columnist, has held up the VA as a model for the entire country. The Washington Monthly ran a famous article in 2005 arguing that the VA was leading the way for U.S. health care. The socialist senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, is such a reflexive defender that in an instantly notorious interview on CNN he pooh-poohed the burgeoning scandal that may involve fatalities with the undeniable observation that “people die every day.”

The VA is an island of socialism in American health care. It generally provides adequate care — to a limited universe of people and for only certain conditions — but has been plagued by scandal for decades. It is perhaps the worst bureaucracy in the federal government. As with all such single-payer-type systems, the cost of the notionally free health care is in the rationing, in this case the wait times that have had desperately ill vets hung out to dry for months.

Paul Waldman wrote a blog post in The Washington Post Wednesday imploring President Barack Obama to fix the VA to redeem the liberal vision of government. If six years into his presidency he has yet to fix the VA he promised to fix before he took office, that’s either an indictment of his presidency or the liberal vision of government or both. READ MORE

As my National Review colleague Jonah Goldberg points out, the usual excuses don’t apply here. The existence of the VA isn’t politically controversial.

[mandaladon]

This is how poorly performing government bureaucracies have met goals from time immemorial; it’s why, on a much more vast and monstrous scale, Soviet five-year plans were always such runaway successes on paper.....................According to liberals Obamacare is a runaway succes.

[blueunicorn6]

It is obvious that the Democrats stall the Veterans in order to use the money to buy votes.

[I want the USA back]

What happened to the vets is pure socialism.
They HATE those who fought for the country, because they HATE the country.
But you can be sure the socialists will give FREE care for aids patients, sex-change operations, abortions and euthanazia for the elderly.

[stanne]

And illegals.

[ArcadeQuarters]

Welcome to our future.

[RitaOK]

A Rich Lowery column appearing on politico is fascinating. What’s up with THAT?

The low watt bulbs must be lighting up, among the solid Left heads at Politico.

Surely the ship of state crew are not bailing overboard so soon. I thought they would stick around until at least the fireworks were going off.

Rick Lowry? Amazing.