Here's the best idea yet for the Veterans Administration.

Stop.

QuoteSeven of 15 outside health advisers appointed to recommend ways to improve veterans' health services over the next two decades have proposed shutting down all Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers and outpatient services, and having its nine million enrollees get their medical care in the private sector.

The 34-page "straw man" document released by the congressionally created Commission on Care calls for an immediate halt to construction of new VA hospitals and clinics, and launch of a "BRAC-like process" to begin closing existing facilities. Shuttering the largest medical system in the country would leave the VA to be "primarily a payor" for the care veterans would receive from civilian community doctors and health facilities.

http://www.stripes.com/care-commission-shocker-the-push-to-privatize-va-health-care-1.401987

I'm happy to see the usual vested interests are screaming bloody murder. What, force an oxygen-waster like the typical VA hack to actually go find work, when there are younger better people just aching for that job? Wouldn't want the deadbeats upset or anything if they had to stop afternoon naps, instead of committing wanton acts of patient care.

In the case of VA in Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan Hospital system would simply take over the existing building; their impersonal machine-like demeanor won't change one iota.

I would love it, if we could go to any, Dr. no matter who, or where it is at in the U.S.

If you are a vet and weren't dishonorably booted out, yes you SHOULD be getting precisely the same healthcare members of Congress give themselves.

In fact I would go so far as to suggest that every vet who's honorably discharged, and retires, should get the same exact retirement as members of Congress get as well.

As things are today, politicians who've never done a thing. Not one thing in their lifetimes besides sit in Congress.

Retire and live like kings. But the folks who make up the muscle to keep him in that job in the first place.

They retire and get to be well what we all are. Anyone near as rich as a member of congress here?

Or how about your healthcare, it that good? When you fly, do you fly first class as they do.

Or Coach with the rest of us peasants and serfs?

Are the VA's bad overall, or are they understaffed and underfunded?

Quote from: Dori on March 31, 2016, 10:10:20 AM
Are the VA's bad overall, or are they understaffed and underfunded?

Mismanaged without accountability might be a better definition.

Quote from: Dori on March 31, 2016, 10:10:20 AM
Are the VA's bad overall, or are they understaffed and underfunded?

Poorly run, with too many chiefs in DC.
I go to Mather in Sacto. and honestly, I can't complain, compared to Martinez and other VA hospitals, it's really not all that bad.
The problem all VA clinics have is internships as in learning hospitals, where one surgeon oversees a group of students doing the actual surgery.

I had a night mare event take place because of this very incompetence, and to add insult to injury, the anesthesiologist had gone home for the day and the doctor was not authorized to use more than a local.
The rookie had cut through to my carotid artery when doing a simple skin graph, the cut was so severe they had to cauterize it to stop the bleeding, all without anesthesia.
Yes, between the smell of burning flesh and pain, it was one memory I'd just as soon forget

Sadly this is amplified across the nation, and all because of stupid regulations and policies dictating procedure, and in this case, they couldn't call any doctors back in to help.
VA care is OK for simple things, but if you have any serious issues, your life is probably at risk.

Quote from: supsalemgr on March 31, 2016, 10:24:12 AM
Mismanaged without accountability might be a better definition.

"I'm From The Government And I'm Here To Help."      

Quote from: Solar on March 31, 2016, 10:37:59 AMThe problem all VA clinics have is internships as in learning hospitals, where one surgeon oversees a group of students doing the actual surgery.

My oldest son was born in a Military Hospital, and the doctors there were interns.  However, my nurse had been an OB nurse for 25 years and probably knew more than they did.   

My husband had to have spinal surgery, after a helicopter accident, but they sent him to Fitzsimons for the operation, where he had a much older German doctor.  That surgery was somewhat experimental at the time, but it worked, and he didn't have any back issues after everything healed.  We were lucky, as my uncle had to have back surgery here at a military hospital and they fused his spine, which caused him nothing but grief afterwards.