Boehner Suggests Privatizing The VA: ‘I Still Like The Idea, And Especially Now’

[ProSense]

Boehner Suggests Privatizing The VA: ‘I Still Like The Idea, And Especially Now’

By Igor Volsky

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is floating the idea of privatizing the Department of Veterans Affairs following multiple reports of abuses and delays of care at the agency. “I still like the idea, and especially now,” Boehner said in response to a question from the Columbus Dispatch about whether he still supported turning over veterans’ care to the free market. Boehner had considered the option “more than two decades ago,” reporter Jessica Wehrman notes.

Boehner added that “until we understand what’s happening and until we understand whether it can be fixed or how it can be fixed, all veterans seeking care shouldn’t have to wait” and said that reports of some veterans dying waiting to access care pointed to “systematic” problems within the VA.

Privatizing or partially privatizing veterans health care was most recently considered during the 2012 presidential election by Mitt Romney, who proposed giving servicemembers government vouchers to “choose whether they want to go in the government system or in a private system with the money that follows them.” Veterans groups quickly rejected the idea, arguing that access to VA-sponsored care through private providers would undermine the existing system that is exclusively suited to meet veterans health needs and treat war injuries and could lead veterans to “lose the many safeguards built into the VA system.” Following the backlash, Romney abandoned the proposal.

While veterans have struggled to gain adequate access to care since the Kennedy administration, the health services they do receive are the best in the nation. The annual Independent Budget, an aspirational budget published by the nation’s leading veteran organizations, has consistently found that the government-run VA serves as “a model health-care provider that has led the way in various areas of medical research, specialized services, and health-care technology.” It provides “quality and expertise on veterans’ health care” that “cannot be adequately duplicated in the private sector” and has become “the most efficient and cost-effective health-care system in the nation,” the document notes. A 2005 survey from the RAND Corporation similarly found that “VA patients were more likely to receive recommended care” and “received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow up.” The nation’s largest integrated health care network also outperforms other health systems in delivering chronic and preventive care, treating diabetes.

- more -

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/05/24/3441428/boehner-suggests-privatizing-the-va-i-still-like-the-idea-and-especially-now/

The VA is the best health care system in the United States.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024989621

[Katashi_itto]

1. Low Life Bastard. I as a disabled vet truly hate that guy. Spends all his time defunding the

VA then screams that it's broken.

[spanone]

2. it's their answer to everything. privatize and de-regulate. it's all they've got.

[GoneFishin]

6. You forgot : Undermine, underfund, sabotage, then privatize.

If the news had not been canceled in this country this flim-flam scam for stealing public assets for pennies on the dollar would have been exposed by now. But it is what it is.

[mark eagledove]

3. dammit! its PROFITIZE, not "privatize". This scumbag

wants to make a profit off me and all of us veterans. What a fucking scumbag.

Dammit, please quit using their Orwellian language. Its profitize. Just the same as "pro-life" bullcrap. Quit using their lying language.

I hate these people. Just watched the PBS special on the environmental movement and this one crusty old Sierra club member who stopped the dams in the Grand Canyon said "you better hate these people and never compromise". He is right.

[Leme]

4. no need to have a government

Just let the rich and powerful do directly do what they want. Why pretend to have a democracy?

[DJ13]

5. Good idea!

Add corporate profit margins to the current cost, that ought to save money.

[GoneFishin]

8. Yeah. Because adding $100 million in executive pay and another $100 million in dividends to

the stockholders will surely free up resources to improve efficiency.

[KaryninMiami]

7. Exactly what they would want to do.

Schools, prisons and now the VA. This is so pathetically predictable. And this is another example of how elections have consequences. Privatizing the VA would be hot on their to do list if they had the Senate and House.

[Cha]

9. Boner's such an Obvious A$$hole. Sends Soldiers to WAr but won't Pay for their Medical BILLS!!!!

[onehandle]

10. Deport John Boehner.

Send him to one of the dozens of counties with universal healthcare, including mental healthcare.

Which he clearly needs.

[octoberlib]

11. I'm sure this was their plan all along and it's why they were de-funding it.

Despicable.