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Poor care at VA hospitals cost 1,000 veterans their lives, report says

No doubt you were every bit as outraged in the past. Honestly, to suggest this is Obama's fault is beyond silly. I'm quite sure you'll be leading the cheers for him as this gets fixed since the repairs will start on his watch.

I was unaware of the magnitude of the problem in the past. But that's irrelevant, his administration knew about this.
 
We're in a thread about him doing nothing, you need more proof of something already admitted to?

Prove your statement. And let's not go with a right wing fishwrap's opinion as proof?
 
The government isn't what needs fixing in this particular case. The way the system works for the given circumstances is what needs to be fixed. It is capable of being fixed, but both sides are too busy fighting to work towards it. They both want to place partisan-based blame, just as you are doing.

This is nothing like single payer healthcare because there are alternatives to the VA system available for most vets, including other government insurances, employee insurance (or it should be), Medicare, and even other private charity healthcare.

I don't agree with the ACA at all. But that too is not single payer healthcare. That is not UHC/NHS. It is Universally mandated Health Insurance, something that the right pushed for back in the 80s and even 90s.

The govt determines the system, so yes it is to blame. And even those nations with single payer often have supplemental insurance.

This is what top down medicine gets us-dead Americans.
 
UHC is nothing but more socialist BS. Giving out to the lazy what others struggled hard and worked for. Thats BS, if someone doesn't work for and earn it for themselves, they shouldn't be given it. That goes for housing, food, water and healthcare. It is illogical to waste limited resources on those who only contribute negatively to society and who are totally worthless as individuals.

Im inclined to agree. Its going to be quite expensive, with a large portion of the average Americans paycheck retained each month to pay for this. The standard of care will drop. There wont be a desire to provide quality care or to keep the customer satisfied (as we see with the VA now).

People want a freebie and dont realize how its going to hurt them.

1000 vets dead because of the govt. That would be just the first of millions under socialized medicine.
 
Imagine the headlines if a private insurance company withheld care resulting in the deaths of over a 1000 people. Think it would get coverage?
 
UHC is nothing but more socialist BS. Giving out to the lazy what others struggled hard and worked for. Thats BS, if someone doesn't work for and earn it for themselves, they shouldn't be given it. That goes for housing, food, water and healthcare. It is illogical to waste limited resources on those who only contribute negatively to society and who are totally worthless as individuals.

How about us "lazy" retired people, should we use Social Security?
 
The govt determines the system, so yes it is to blame. And even those nations with single payer often have supplemental insurance.

This is what top down medicine gets us-dead Americans.

Our own medical system leads to dead Americans, as I've shown in the first thing I posted.
 
Poor care at VA hospitals cost 1,000 veterans their lives, report says
$1B in malpractice settlements as horror stories revealed


“The problems at the VA are worse than anyone imagined,” Mr. Coburn said. “Over the past decade, more than 1,000 veterans may have died as a result of VA’s misconduct and the VA has paid out nearly $1 billion to veterans and their families for its medical malpractice.”

Read more: Poor care at VA hospitals cost 1,000 veterans their lives, report says - Washington Times
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter


Govt health care in action. :doh And they hire criminals as well. Our vets dont deserve this, and Obama has some explaining to do.
What difference at this point does it make?
 
Imagine the headlines if a private insurance company withheld care resulting in the deaths of over a 1000 people. Think it would get coverage?

They do it all the time. Heck, that was big news with HMOs not too long ago and they operated for decades like that. Insurance companies still do this. Or do you not remember the movie John Q? That certainly wasn't government run healthcare doing that. Do you think they pulled the basis for that movie out of nowhere.

HMO Refuses To Pay For Life Saving Surgery | Consumer Watchdog

The story of the little girl who was attacked by dogs (the KFC thing that may or may not be a hoax) says that they were trying to raise money for her because their insurance company was refusing to pay for food for the feeding tube.

Insurance companies refuse to pay medical bills of Old Bridge woman injured in wrong-way crash | NJ.com

Do you need more? It happens all the time. They simply aren't as scrutinized as the government system is.
 
Look, Congress is as much to blame as anyone. Both houses. I am a disabled vet. I used to use the Phoenix VA. It sucks like a bucket of ticks. Many vets in Arizona knew that before the fit hit the shan. I complained to my congressional representatives and I know other vets who have as well. In frustration, before the debacle went public I finally moved my VA service to Tucson. Sure it's a 2 hour drive, but you actually get appointments.

Congress knew long before a physician blew the whistle and Congress - both parties - did jack ****. Somebody, anybody, show me where Congress addressed the issue and took action before the lid blew off. Someone show me where Congress approached the President, where Shinseki approached the President and informed him of what was happening.

I did not vote for Obama, but blaming Obama for the VA debacle is partisan hackery. Blame the VA, then blame both houses and both parties, then blame the American people. Where are all those yellow ribbon sumbitches now?

What a poor answer.

Thank you for your service.

The VA is the perfect example not of political failing as much as it is a prime example of the systemic ineptitude of bureaucratic bloat. It's not that the political parties failed as much as this is what HAPPENS when faceless drones, unaccountable to the people or their actual performance, make the decisions. The VA has been a political football for years in the public, and behind the closed doors of government it's become a mess of personal profit and gain.
 
They do it all the time. Heck, that was big news with HMOs not too long ago and they operated for decades like that. Insurance companies still do this. Or do you not remember the movie John Q? That certainly wasn't government run healthcare doing that. Do you think they pulled the basis for that movie out of nowhere.

HMO Refuses To Pay For Life Saving Surgery | Consumer Watchdog

The story of the little girl who was attacked by dogs (the KFC thing that may or may not be a hoax) says that they were trying to raise money for her because their insurance company was refusing to pay for food for the feeding tube.

Insurance companies refuse to pay medical bills of Old Bridge woman injured in wrong-way crash | NJ.com

Do you need more? It happens all the time. They simply aren't as scrutinized as the government system is.


Show me where they SYSTEMICALLY DENIED CARE TO THOUSANDS RESULTING IN DEATHS. You can't.

And btw, the private sector is much more regulated and scrutinized compared to govt healthcare.
 
They do it all the time. Heck, that was big news with HMOs not too long ago and they operated for decades like that. Insurance companies still do this. Or do you not remember the movie John Q? That certainly wasn't government run healthcare doing that. Do you think they pulled the basis for that movie out of nowhere.

HMO Refuses To Pay For Life Saving Surgery | Consumer Watchdog

The story of the little girl who was attacked by dogs (the KFC thing that may or may not be a hoax) says that they were trying to raise money for her because their insurance company was refusing to pay for food for the feeding tube.

Insurance companies refuse to pay medical bills of Old Bridge woman injured in wrong-way crash | NJ.com

Do you need more? It happens all the time. They simply aren't as scrutinized as the government system is.


Show me where they SYSTEMICALLY DENIED CARE TO THOUSANDS RESULTING IN DEATHS. You can't.

And btw, the private sector is much more regulated and scrutinized compared to govt healthcare.
 
Medicine in and of itself has inherent risks. Those dont include putting war veterans on secret "die" lists. That was the govt, NOT medicine.

That was idiots within a bureaucratic system which had rules that they could not meet so human nature kicked in and made them do something insanely stupid. The same thing can happen within private medicine.
 
Show me where they SYSTEMICALLY DENIED CARE TO THOUSANDS RESULTING IN DEATHS. You can't.

And btw, the private sector is much more regulated and scrutinized compared to govt healthcare.

I already have.

First of all, you have 1000 deaths (according to a right wing biased publication) over a 10 year period. There are 26x more deaths than that caused annually by people simply not having insurance.

No, the private sector isn't, especially not when it comes to insurance and what they will or won't pay for.
 
Many die because of non-government run healthcare as well. How many people have died because their insurance wouldn't pay for a procedure they needed? How many people die because they simply don't have health insurance at all? How many people die because the hospitals are only required to save a person's life? My brother had a medical issue last year that landed him in the hospital twice, the second time because the hospital that took care of him the first time didn't do something right and he got an internal infection. This led to a hospital visit in a different state (he had went to our mother's to recover), which required an expensive ambulance ride to a hospital over an hour and a half away from the one he initially went to. The only reason it was caught in time was because my mother and aunt are both nurses and recognized the signs. Private hospitals and medical facilities and even private insurance does the exact same things that the VA are getting accused of, except they aren't as scrutinized.

As for the high costs, do you have any idea of how the VA medical runs? Most vets require private medical insurance because you only qualify for the VA system as full use if you have a certain qualifying percentage. Most vets who use the VA system can only use it for very specific issues, service connected disabilities. If it isn't service connected or you don't have that qualifying percent disability to entitle you to use it for anything, you have to go to a private medical institution. The government isn't keeping insurance premiums and deductibles high. That would be the insurance companies and the cost of private medical practice doing that.

Some of this depends upon the veteran's enlistment agreement. My enlistment agreement guarantees me medical care from a CBOC clinic, as well as medical and hospitalization, I also have medicare A, but VA doctors will not set foot in a private hospital, so I'm fully VA.
 
Some of this depends upon the veteran's enlistment agreement. My enlistment agreement guarantees me medical care from a CBOC clinic, as well as medical and hospitalization, I also have medicare A, but VA doctors will not set foot in a private hospital, so I'm fully VA.

That's pretty much why I said most vets. The majority of vets will only qualify for VA medical care for very specific, minor issues that get them no money for that. Some won't qualify for any VA medical services at all. The older a vet gets, the more likely they are to be able to qualify for more services, but that also requires usually putting in for those additional things each time.
 
How about us "lazy" retired people, should we use Social Security?

Retirees are not lazy. As to Social Security, that depends on whether you ever had a job where you paid into it. If you did, you should get it, you paid for it. If not, then, no. Same with Medicare.

There is a huge difference between people who have worked their whole life and have had to pay for social security and medicare their whole lives and able bodied people who choose to leach off the rest of us instead of working, aka, the lazy people I referred to. I am also referring to those who "work" at places like Walmart, etc and expect high pay and full benefits for entry level labor or unskilled labor but they never actually work at bettering themselves and trying to improve their standing.
 
I already have.

First of all, you have 1000 deaths (according to a right wing biased publication) over a 10 year period. There are 26x more deaths than that caused annually by people simply not having insurance.

No, the private sector isn't, especially not when it comes to insurance and what they will or won't pay for.

Your counting raw numbers not percentages. Also, the really big difference between the two groups you mention are that veterans sacrificed a whole hell of a lot and worked very hard for that care. How many of the uninsured would have insurance if they actually worked, worked at something other than unskilled labor or took education opportunities to get better jobs?

How many more could have insurance if we quit mandating carrying the dead weight?
 
Some of this depends upon the veteran's enlistment agreement. My enlistment agreement guarantees me medical care from a CBOC clinic, as well as medical and hospitalization, I also have medicare A, but VA doctors will not set foot in a private hospital, so I'm fully VA.

And you expect the government to honor that agreement? America has about as good a record of honoring it's agreements with it's veterans as it has honoring treaties with the Native Americans.
 
And you expect the government to honor that agreement? America has about as good a record of honoring it's agreements with it's veterans as it has honoring treaties with the Native Americans.

Yes I do.
 
I already have.

First of all, you have 1000 deaths (according to a right wing biased publication) over a 10 year period. There are 26x more deaths than that caused annually by people simply not having insurance.

No, the private sector isn't, especially not when it comes to insurance and what they will or won't pay for.

Im sorry, you seem to think that saying "look over there!" is an acceptable answer. It is not.
 
Your counting raw numbers not percentages. Also, the really big difference between the two groups you mention are that veterans sacrificed a whole hell of a lot and worked very hard for that care. How many of the uninsured would have insurance if they actually worked, worked at something other than unskilled labor or took education opportunities to get better jobs?

How many more could have insurance if we quit mandating carrying the dead weight?

Yes, we do. However, we deserve more than being used by either side as a political talking piece.

There is no more information available besides those raw numbers. Over the last 10 years, there are 21.2 million vets as of 2012. That would be .004% of vets died. The population of the US in 2012 was around 310M. That would mean that at 26000 people per year for 10 years, .08% of the population died from being uninsured. That means even percentage wise, less vets died waiting on a VA appointment than those who died because they aren't insured, many because it is just plain too expensive, despite them having jobs.

Education does not provide better jobs automatically, despite some beliefs. You need experience, and that means working low wage crap jobs to get that experience. Many of those uninsured are the vets, since, if they had other insurance, they wouldn't need to rely fully on the VA for their care. And education takes time. It takes a couple of years to get even just an associates, which isn't going to get you a decent job by itself. Plus, if a person has health problems to begin with, then they are going to be limited on what jobs they can do.

Many of those vets are part of the "uninsured" because they can't get decent jobs and neither party wants to give vets lifetime insurance without 20 years of service. So instead they offer them VA benefits for anything that can be connected to the service, and that's it for most. We wouldn't have had this problem if they had either a) insurance rather than relying on the VA or b) UHC, since then they could simply get an appointment locally to them. My husband and I were talking about it yesterday. If they really wanted to fix the system, they could simply put all vets, no matter their years of service on TriCare (use years of service and/or means testing to determine who gets what kind), which could divert funding for those who determine who is eligible for what when it comes to VA medicine and service connected disabilities, and open up VA hospitals as priority treatments centers for vets and military, just as military hospitals and centers are open now. This also allows for the option of having a local PCM rather than having to go to those VA or military facilities.
 
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