The VA

[Embar Angylwrath]

So now you're seeing what a single payer heathcare system does to patient care quality. As with every other large bureaucratic organization, the mission morphs into job preservation. Obama's response to this has been terrible, and just a bunch of bullshit nonsense. How in the hell can he be angry about something he isn't sure is happening? What a buffoon.

[Ddrak]

Doesn't the VA rate significantly higher than companies like Aetna or UHC for patient care?

Dd

[Arathena]

Doesn't the VA rate significantly higher than companies like Aetna or UHC for patient care?

Dd

I don't think you can really compare them, as the war injured are a very different population. CNS and massive limb damage are over-represented, due to more effective armor, as are a grand variety of mental illnesses that are basically the human brain/mind being significantly unsuited to modern warfare. That said; when a vet gets care, they tend to be very happy with the care they get; but over all, most disapprove of the total package.

There needs to be a comprehensive overhaul, one that starts with firing everyone who worked to conceal the truth of an appointment wait at any and all VA facilities. The employee incentives program needs to be re-written to focus more directly on quality and timeliness of care; and properly audited. VA administrators were given a numerical target, and told 'sure, we'll trust you'. We need to address the deficit of primary care physicians in the VA - probably at the same time we address that deficit for the general populace - if the system doesn't have doctors, there's a problem waiting to happen.. We need to address the money aspect - yes, the VA budget has gone up 50% in the last six years, and the patient load has gone up 129%.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I'm largely in agreement with Ara on his recommendations. And they should be applied to all levels of government workers. This is what happens when people in government unionize. It's hard enough to rein in a bureaucracy, in fact I'm not sure it has ever been done. They are either consumed by another bureaucracy, or change their names, but they never seem to die. To quote FDR, a champion of private sector unions, but realizing public sector unions were anathema to the betterment of the republic:

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," he wrote. "It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. "The employer," is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.

In other words, you can't have the federal servants putting their interests in front of the larger republic.

[Ddrak]

Embar,

FDR was emphatically in support of public sector unions. That quote has been taken severely out of context and the sense of the whole letter is to affirm the public sector's right to unionise but to limit *essential services* ability to *strike*. That seems a reasonable position to me.

Dd

[Arathena]

Applying the recommendation that government be allowed to function to all levels of government would require one specific political party to quit.