Vets Healthcare, Indian Health Service - Expect no less from ObamaCare
Last month I quoted an article about the problems with Veterans Administration healthcare. Since then, I’ve run across ample additional anecdotal data, such as what even the New York Times called a “Rogue Cancer Unit” at the Philadelphia VA hospital, botched colonoscopies, and political shenanigans at the VA in Pittsburgh.
But most informative yet is a Congressional Budget Office interim report on veterans health care, with data through 2007. The VA classes patients into eight “priority groups” depending on the degree of disability, income and age. The key fact is that the Veterans Health Administration doesn’t say much about single payer or a public option because veterans today receive most of their healthcare outside the system, as Cassandra of Villainous Company summarizes:
In other words, the bulk of their health care needs are met outside the VA system. As you can see from the following chart, the VA is NOT the primary health care delivery system for most vets: