The Nation's George Zornick does a nice job blowing the whistle on another Koch sponsored propaganda con job at
How the Koch Network Exploited the Veterans Affairs Crisisl
I read the story with care....the CVA, Concerned Veterans for America, is correct in almost everything it says about the crisis....and if the Koch organizations funding them were motivated by a desire to expose and correct the abuses in the VA, well and good...BUT...it is what they imply (either through half truths and omissions) that is the problem here.
The Concerned Veterans for America make it clear at their website, in interviews, when testifying that the VA crisis is an OBAMA crisis demonstrating that SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, LIKE ACA, is at the heart of the troubles in the VA.
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG..did I say WRONG? Why?
1. The VA has had trouble meeting the need of vets after wars almost from the start....after WWII, and Korea....the system was constantly being adjusted as there was little understanding how complex vet needs were. During Vietnam, anger at the war spilled into a lack of support for the needed vast expansion in VA Services. It took the Nixon administration to put things on track where they largely stayed through the Reagan years (although funding cuts then would create the beginnings of the next crisis in the Clinton years.) Under Clinton/Gingrich cuts in the military were a convenient place to deal with the budget, and the VA got its share.
BUT, it is George W. Bush's Admin that should get the lion's share of blame for this. When you have two wars that run for your entire administration and only grow the VA by 12 percent there is going to be trouble and there was and is.
Under Obama an increase of 14 percent in his first two years in office, was a good start but further increases have been blocked...in the House. A GOP House.
SOOOOOOO......this Koch funded group tells a HUGE LIE a they speak a lot of truths.
2. Socialized medicine. The fact is that VA hospitals, as originally imagined, were like city and county facilities...public medical care paid for with public dollars. And that Is an approach found in socialized economies. BUT, that model is long dead.
Even the VA system utilized CHAMPUS, the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services. CHAMPUS is a US federally funded health program that provides beneficiaries with medical care, supplemental to that available in US military and Public Health Service facilities.
All CHAMPUS beneficiaries switch to using Medicare at age 65. CHAMPUS is like Medicare in that the government contracts with private parties to administer the program. CHAMPUS was revamped as a managed care system and renamed TRICARE. In other words the VA, it has moved toward a model that uses public monies for private care in covered items. It looks like this transfer of care will continue with VA hospitals focusing on care for physical and emotional injuries particular to combat.
3. AND this scandal has NOTHING to do with ACA. Nothing at alll.