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As someone whose healthcare treatment is from the Veterans Administration (VA) because of service connected disabilities, Romney’s discussion of how healthcare should be perhaps provided via voucher sounds like a really, really bad idea. From Talking Point Memo‘s Romney Spit-Balls His Way To Privatizing Veteran’s Benefits:
MAULDIN, SC — Over barbecue and sweet tea with 12 veterans here Friday, Mitt Romney appeared to brainstorm a fundamental change to the way the nation pays back the people who put their lives on the line in the military.
Talking with the veterans about the challenge of navigating the Veterans Affairs bureaucracy to get their health care benefits after they leave active duty, Romney suggested a way to improve the system would be to privatize it.
“Sometimes you wonder, would there be someway to introduce some private sector competition, somebody else that could come in and say, you know, each soldier gets X thousand dollars attributed to them and then they can choose whether they want to go on the government system or the private system and then it follows them, like what happens with schools in Florida where they have a voucher that follows them. Who knows.”
The idea is similar to Romney’s plan for Medicare, which would allow recipients to choose a private plan instead of the classic government-run health care structure.
Vouchers for veterans with service connected disabilities? This sounds like another way to enrich the 1% of the private sector — while at the same time providing inferior healthcare than the healthcare services currently provided to disabled veterans.
Bad, bad idea. Even if I weren’t a disabled veteran, I would be arguing against this plan — we owe disabled veterans better than a voucher plan designed to limit how much treatment they receive for disabilities attained in service to their nation. Our disabled Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, coming home with brain injuries, missing limbs, and PTSD deserve so much better than that this crappy Mitt Romney idea.
All I can add to this is the more general comment of ‘What the hell is wrong with all the Republican candidates for President this year?”
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Every time they bring up a voucher system all I can think is that is their preferred plan to shift wealth from a system that works well to one that is driven by monied interests, in this case to insurance companies.
Who says that private insurance is more efficient? I’ve seen no evidence of it. (Not to mention the fine print.)
I would state one of your comments differently:
“All I can add to this is the more general comment of ‘What the hell is wrong with all the Republican candidates for President this year?’”
Just take out the word “Republican” and I can give you an answer: the 1% own them.
Well, the irony here is ‘Tri-Care for Life’ and other levels of Veteran Medical care plans are actually run by private sector companies.
Here in the North East for someone to move here, they have to start navigting the system months in advance. I have a coworker who found out the hard way how non-portable this system is. He was assinged to a doctor as his primary care physician over 60 miles away because this ‘system’ re-emburses at over a 60% discount…that means a doctor says “It cost me a dollar” and this system gives him 30 some odd cents. No one wants to participate in this system.
The VA? The experiance spans a wide range because the VA system is actually state run. The individual states can and do flood the system with non-US military veterans. Often its just indigent men with no insurance… Then some states short change their VA hospital coffers or just don’t manage them properly at all. Others go to the limits, then walk past them to ensure that veterans DO get every bit of care they can provide. The funny irony here is, from my experiance, that the worst VA hospitals are in the southeast where they idolize the military and the best is in the northeast where they don’t. Heck, some are totally negative against the military and yet the VA is run like a clock and twice as clean.
As of right now, MY retired veteran medcial needs are met by my civilian job. I can’t even use ‘Tri-to care less-for Life’ as coinsurance. No practicianer takes it. My perscription copays went up over 100% in one go and the only thing I hear is “your lucky”. Funny, when I signed the contract 26 years ago they siad they would take care of me, never thought it would be to cheat me slowly to death.