What Is Wrong With Walter Reed? Socialized Medicine!

                    (Image from chinadaily.com.cn)

A firestorm has errupted over the scandal at Walter Reed Hospital, here and here.  The government acted quickly, for a change.  Not only was the general in charge of Walter Reed fired, so was his boss, the Secretary of the Army.  Congress will have several hearings. 

What no one expected was the torrent of response from millions of vets, about the abysmal government medical care they have suffered for decades.  This scandal is bigger, and deeper, than we realized. 

This publicity provides the best chance yet to change that.  But when all the publicity is over, will medical care for our veterans just continue as it is?

One sure thing is that Americans do not want their wounded soldiers, Marines, Air Force and sailors treated badly.   We are eternally grateful to these wounded young men and  women.  We want them to get the best of everything, for as long as it takes.

But can our care system for wounded vets be fixed?  It is, after all, socialized medicine.  It's flaws are the same as socialized medicine in the countries that have it.

In all such countries, medical care has gone steadily downhill.  Waiting times for medical care are very long.  In Canada, waiting times for medical care are 3.7 months on the average.  For eye problems (cataract surgery, glaucoma treatment, etc.) the wait is 6.4 months.  For bone surgery, 6  to 16 months.  Patients needing chemotherapy or radiation wait 5 - 8.9 weeks.  Many Canadians simply go to the U.S. for cancer treatment.

As long as we insist on socialized medicine for our vets, that is the kind of care we can expect.  But what could we give them instead?  How about the kinds of private health insurance most of us have?  Paid for by the government?  Come to think about it, why doesn't Congress simply provide our wounded vets with the same kind of deluxe medical insurance they voted for themselves?

That's not the worst of it. Walter Reed and other veterans systems are trying so hard to save money that they will not grant disability pay at the actual level of disability, but push it downward to lower levels of disability, here.

That is simply disgraceful behavior.  Are we not willing to pay our wounded service members disability at a level appropriate to their actual level of disability?  This wealthy country needs to be more grateful than that!

As Galloway wrote in the article linked above, "Until we get this right and get back to living up to our responsibilities, we don't deserve the sacrifices that our soldiers, sailors, Marines and Air Force personnel make for us every day."

(Grateful Hat Tip to Neils Boortz, who has been hammering this on his radio show all day.  Read his article here.)

Comments

[Miss Carnivorous]

I am in complete agreement with you. We have let these brave men and women down.