Hillary / Obama or Obama / Hillary Ticket? Are the Dems Trying to Lose?

swegin

Gerry Lopez status
Sep 20, 2007
1,068
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carolina
I always thought Veterans Hospitals were a step below Veterinarians. They're kind of an incompetence cliché. I even googled “veterans hospitals incompetence” and there was plenty of current material. Newer than yours even.

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/shrug.gif" alt="" />

I'm all for doing something to fix healthcare, but I'm thinking the VA is not even close to a shining example.
Let's see your sources. I provided an article that discussed the strenghts of the VA system. If you've got something to counter that, besides your own "thoughts," please post it up. Thanks.

(If you're disinclined to follow the link I provided, here's a segment)

"Pushed by large employers who are eager to know what they are buying when they purchase health care for their employees, an outfit called the National Committee for Quality Assurance today ranks health-care plans on 17 different performance measures. These include how well the plans manage high blood pressure or how precisely they adhere to standard protocols of evidence-based medicine such as prescribing beta blockers for patients recovering from a heart attack. Winning NCQA's seal of approval is the gold standard in the health-care industry. And who do you suppose this year's winner is: Johns Hopkins? Mayo Clinic? Massachusetts General? Nope. In every single category, the VHA system outperforms the highest rated non-VHA hospitals.


When it comes to health care, it's a government bureaucracy that's setting the standard for maintaining best practices while reducing costs, and it's the private sector that's lagging in quality. That unexpected reality needs examining if we're to have any hope of understanding what's wrong with America's health-care system and how to fix it. It turns out that precisely because the VHA is a big, government-run system that has nearly a lifetime relationship with its patients, it has incentives for investing in quality and keeping its patients well--incentives that are lacking in for-profit medicine. "
 

GWS

Duke status
Jan 11, 2002
42,605
21
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done
Let's see your sources. I provided an article that discussed the strenghts of the VA system. If you've got something to counter that, besides your own "thoughts," please post it up. Thanks.
Are you serious? Did you think I was kidding when I said I googled it? Try it. Here, these are just the top few hits. This goes on for freaking pages.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&amp;res=9D0CEFD71F3DF931A15752C1A967958260

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.ht...;pagewanted=all

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/in...BAFAAA3AD64B1F9

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,326187,00.html


http://cbs11tv.com/investigators/VA.Veterans.Affairs.2.500640.html

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=local&amp;id=5778774

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1607243,00.html



Like I said, page after page after page. If you don't like any of those sources, keep going.

I can't believe you've never heard these allegations. Incompetence and VA hospitals are almost a synonym.

But hey, look at the bright side. If the VA really was all that, you'd have to give Bush credit for fixing the system.

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/shrug.gif" alt="" />
 

swegin

Gerry Lopez status
Sep 20, 2007
1,068
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carolina
Of course the VA system has been criticized. The articles you provided don't all describe incompetence. One of them discussed post-surgical death outcomes, with the VA responding appropriately to the situation. One of the articles blasts the Bush administration's neglect of the VA system. I was unable to find information that described a medical system in the United States that was better than the VA. Your blanket criticism of the VA, along with articles that don't actually support your assertion that the VA is a bad system, lead me to conclude that you want to belive that the VA system, and perhaps all government run systems, are inefficient and ineffective.
 

swegin

Gerry Lopez status
Sep 20, 2007
1,068
0
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carolina
This crap happens constantly, and it ALWAYS comes from leftist soup nazis.
A kid getting suspended for buying candy has nothing to do with leftist or rightist soup nazis. You've already proved yourself to be completely insane, and hallucinogenig torreador is following closely in your footsteps. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/unuts.gif" alt="" />
 

GWS

Duke status
Jan 11, 2002
42,605
21
0
done
The articles you provided don't all describe incompetence.
That was the barest sample of what is out there. As I have said repeatedly now, run the search yourself. The amount of material describing incompetence in the links I posted is overwhelming. And you know it.

One of the articles blasts the Bush administration's neglect of the VA system.
Yup. And your lone, solitary article (from 2005) is telling us how great it is. If you honestly believe that, I guess you should probably sing Bush's praises on this issue.



I was unable to find information that described a medical system in the United States that was better than the VA.
The painfully obvious intimation made in the majority of those articles (and pages more on my browser) is the VA is a substandard provider when compared to civilian facilities. That's kind of the point of all of those articles. To draw attention to the disparity.

Your blanket criticism of the VA...
All I did was pass along the barest tip of the iceberg regarding information that has come to light in the media regarding VA hospitals and substandard care. It wasn't my blanket criticism. It is a criticism that has been leveled by a plethora of journalists and news organizations.

along with articles that don't actually support your assertion that the VA is a bad system
If you read those articles and can claim that none of them are asserting that the VA is rife with substandard medical care and incompetence, then you are a liar. There's really no other way to put it. And, as I keep pointing out, please, by all means, run a search and do some of your own homework instead of asking me to spoon feed it to you. You don't generate page after page after page of hits on VA incompetence without there being a problem. Too much smoke for no fire.

lead me to conclude that you want to belive that the VA system, and perhaps all government run systems, are inefficient and ineffective.
Again, regarding the VA, it's not what I believe. It's what the news media has been shouting from the rooftops for years now.

I'm with you on the health care system being broken. I'm even with you on enacting some kind of a government subsidized health plan. (snowballs chance in hell of ever happening, but I like the idea)

My point is you might want to rethink holding the VA up as some kind of shinning example of government run health care.

Because with what I have been reading about VA's over the years, if we can't do better than that, maybe we should just leave things the way they are.
 

john4surf

Kelly Slater status
May 28, 2005
8,987
3,674
113
CBS, CA
Props to Swegin, really a thoughtful, articulate and intelligentt contributor <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/applause2.gif" alt="" /> But, like any system there are those who will fark it for their own advantage. It isn't the systems fault, just a fact of life there are those who figure out how to fark the system...

We had a vet who surfed the local reef 9 - 10 years. Had a photo of himself in fatigues in the back of his old cammo van. Guy couldn't let VN go.


He spent a lot of time between his laborer job for the local gas and electric company and the local VA. He always complained he wasn't getting 100% disability from the VA. Word was he was Sectioned 8 after 2 - 3 months in-country. He bought a newer van. Still complained about the VA and how he wasn't getting his 'deserved' disability.

One afternoon, the choppers were all over the place and the rat-a-tat-tat of an M-16 broke up the usual calm in the community. Our local decided to take it our on his old van wit his M-16. He was apparently careful not to hit the newer van. Short story, he gave up after walking out of his apartment with a pistol in his mouth, he was sent to VA and as far as anyone knows he was never tried for shooting up the neighborhood.

He got his 100% disability and apparently an early retirement form the gas and electric company. The shot up van was towed away.

Saw him several months later driving around in the newer van but never saw him back in water.

Last year there was a news clip; he was identified and described as the driver of the newer van, under the influence of prescription drugs and crossing the double lines and running head on into an on-coming car.

He survived, was under police guard at the hospital according to the clip.

I think given the eratic behavior and his past the VA should have institutionalized him and treated him for whatever term it took to make him safe to be in the population. I think the system won't allow this or, it makes it easier to let these guys out than to try to really fix the problem.

Sorry for the chapter but it is sort of related to the VA and surfing....

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/helmet.gif" alt="" />