(01-31-2019, 12:35 PM)B2hibry Wrote:

(01-31-2019, 11:49 AM)mikesez Wrote: What would that teach me?
The VA system has trouble hiring people because we have a shortage of doctors in general.
They also try to only treat stuff that was service-related.  A lot of the frustrations come from that; a doc shouldn't care "why" you got hurt, he should just want to help you heal.
Sometimes wait times were long.  Some people fraudulently altered their tracking of wait times.
None of this means they are doing a worse job than private providers.
Private providers won't see some of these people, and they don't have the same goals.

Literally, every single line you wrote here is wrong. You want to see what kind of cluster socialized medicine in America would look like, the VA is the poster child!

- Doctors don't hire on to the VA because of bureaucracy and image issues.
- The VA treats veterans with or without service related injury or illnesses.
- The VA is not only preventative care but also treatment. They care about the why, how, and fix action. Unfortunately, each of those has another bureaucratic level and specialist.
- Wait times are ALLWAYS long! One rare exception is if you happen to be lucky enough to live in a relatively low populated region. Wait times have gotten so bad that they implemented a program called CHOICE to allow members to seek out private providers.
- The VA is and has been doing a worse job than private providers. There have been numerous upper level firings and reorgs over the last few years. Still not working.
- Private providers will see "these" people. See the CHOICE program. In fact, most members will do everything possible to go to a private provider over the VA. I have friends that would rather pay out of pocket than go to the VA. And why wouldn't a treatment team whether VA or private have the same prevention and treatment goals?

My dad is a Viet Nam vet. He and 3 other friends of the family get healthcare via the VA and we've never heard a complaint from any of them. They've provided my dad healthcare that otherwise, he could not afford. Some of his prescriptions are hundreds of dollars on their own and he is on a lot of medicines for various health problems related to exposure to chemicals during the war and years of shift work in the factory, where he was employed for 36 years. The people that I've met who complain about the service of the VA are the ones who either don't need it or are rich enough to buy whatever private healthcare they need. In fact, he just had an eye appointment at the VA last week to check on his glaucoma and he was in and out in around 45 minutes. That's not typical, but it happens. In all the years he's gone there, we've only experienced really long wait times twice that I know of and that was during a big flu outbreak where they were understaffed. That could've happened anywhere. Sometimes you just have to be patient, whether it's at the doctor, the DMV, the grocery store or a restaurant.

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