New Article on VHA in American Prospect
I am very excited to let people know that my new article — Unfriendly Fire: Despite ideological attacks and under-funding, the Veterans Health Administration is a model public system.on the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is out in the wonderful public policy magazine The American Prospect. I urge everyone to read it — as well as to read the magazine, if you don’t already. You can find it at http://prospect.org/article/why-veterans-health-system-better-you-think
Please also send in your comments to the magazine.
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I have a injured spine, eye and brain after “playing hurt” for over 20 years.I have suffered greatly because of the illegal and unethical actions of the VA. Last year, I testified at a special meeting of the Philadelphia City Council and met with Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) regarding my experiences.
The VA is made up of two groups; the Veterans & the Administrators. You have seen the Administrators’ official “Dog & Pony Show” and you have given it a “Rave Review”.
I am a Veteran,I am a “victim” in the VA Medical Scandal and I have a very different “review” of the VA.
I am very sorry you had this experience. I think that experiences like these do happen in the VHA, which is the largest healthcare system in the country. I believe the VHA is trying to make things better and I have talked to many veterans who have had excellent care at VHAs around the country. I also think that privatizing the VHA is not the way to make things better for veterans like yourself, who would then have to rely on an uncoordinated healthcare system which is often totally unaccountable, fragmented, and hugely expensive — with no positive return for patients. Although this is certainly no comfort to you, the same kinds of things happen to people in the private healthcare system. When a similar thing happened to me, I had absolutely no recourse — not with my national or regional political representatives, not with the state board of medicine where it happened, not with any lawyer. And I later found out that the surgeon and hospital in which I was operated on, knew for years that the kinds of problems that impacted me were happening over and over again and no one did anything. Again, I am not denying problems in the VHA, the question is what is the solution.