Kate writes:
The VA not only routinely out-performs the private sector, it arrived at that level of quality after years at the bottom of the barrel. When conservatives harp about Medicare Part D and conclude "government can't do anything right" -- here's another direction to point them. The only truly government-run system in the U.S., and it provides better care than all the others. Or, you know, we can keep playing "Bush's vision of health care" and let insurance go the way of the drug benefit.
Not only that, but she's got the numbers. Remember, too, that the VA is the only truly socialized health system in the US: they run the insurance side, sure, but also employ the doctors, build the hospitals, and administrate the care. All of which makes the VA a particularly fertile example for liberals because, unlike the French or German or Canadian systems, the VA exists within the America lifestyle context, short-circuiting the weird well-we-eat-more-cheeseburgers retort to arguments about lower medical spending and better health outcomes in foreign countries. The VA is cheaper, more efficient, less error prone, and boasts higher patient satisfaction than any system in the US, and it does so without the reputation for rationing, waiting lines, and low-tech care that erroneously plague other countries. Now, if some of our conservative friends have an answer for that, I'd like to hear it.
