Deliberations by the Department of Veterans Affairs Commission on Care, the congressionally mandated group planning the future of the Veterans Health Administration, have, as The American Prospect has reported, become increasingly marred by controversy. When the 15-member commission met in Washington in mid-March, another furor erupted. A recently uncovered proposal to privatize the VHA set […]
Suzanne Gordon
Suzanne Gordon is a senior policy analyst at the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute, as well as a journalist and co-editor of a Cornell University Press series on health care work and policy issues. Her latest book, co-authored with Steve Early and Jasper Craven, is Our Veterans: Winners, Losers, Friends, and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs (Duke University Press). She has won a Special Recognition Award from Disabled American Veterans for her writing on veterans’ health issues, much of which has appeared in The American Prospect. Her website is www.suzannegordon.com.
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
House Veterans Affairs Chairman Blasts Health-Care Commission Member
The VA Commission on Care, the 15-member bipartisan body created by Congress to make recommendations about the future of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), has been meeting for months and plans to publish its findings in June. Until this week, Congress had not interfered with the commission’s supposedly independent deliberations. That all changed on March […]
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
Congressional Commission Moves Toward Privatization of VA
The Commission on Care-a congressionally mandated federal body tasked with evaluating alleged shortcomings at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA)-is deliberating largely behind closed doors and, according to sources close to the deliberations, may have a heavy bias towards privatization. This is ironic because one of the critiques against the VHA has been its purported lack […]
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
The Times’s Sloppy Reporting on Sanders and Veterans Health
On Sunday, The New York Times published a wildly misleading front-page story titled, “Faith in Agency Clouded Bernie Sanders’ V.A. Response.” The gist of the piece was that Sanders, blinded by his friendliness to government agencies, did not acknowledge the VA scandal of long wait times for services until very late in the game. But […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Report: VA Outperforms Private Sector on Key Measures
A little-noticed report by a trio of leading research groups found the Veterans Health Administration outperforms private sector health providers on several key measures.
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
Why the Veterans Health System Is Better Than You Think
Despite ideological attacks and under-funding, the Veterans Health Administration is a model public system.
Posted inFeatures
Families on Call
There are 25.8 million family caregivers in America today. According to a recent study by the United Hospital Fund of New York, they provide the equivalent of nearly $200 billion worth of health care services per year. That’s almost double the annual amount the United States spends on nursing home and home health care. Yet […]
Posted inFeatures
Nurse, Interrupted
It’s May 13, the day after Florence Nightingale’s birthday, and as part of the annual celebration of Nurses’ Week–established in part to commemorate Nightingale’s role in the development of professional nursing–members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association have asked me to speak to a group of registered nurses (RNs) at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Health […]
Posted inFeatures
It’s All in Her Head
PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine, by Sally Satel, M.D. Basic Books, 256 pages, $27.00. Are you concerned about the fact that 44 million Americans lack healthinsurance and that millions of senior citizens are struggling to pay for medicineprescribed by their doctors? Are you troubled by the denial of necessary care byHMOs–or by […]
Posted inFeatures
Doc Hollywood
Physicians have always had a symbiotic relationship with Hollywood. From Lew Ayres in the 1930s Dr. Kildare films to Andre Braugher in Gideon’s Crossing and Melina Kanakaredes in Providence, movie studios and TV networks have enlisted the support of individual doctors and their organizations to provide story ideas, expert advice, and, more recently, high-tech medical […]