The VA Scandal Shouldn't Be A Surprise And It Portends The Future With ObamaCare

For decades, liberal politicians have pushed for a complete government takeover of this nation's healthcare system.  However, the general population of Americans and their representative politicians wanted nothing to do with that.  They understood that a government run healthcare system would have all the typical problems -- waste, fraud, abuse, and heavy handedness -- relative to every government run system. But, despite the wishes of most Americans, the Democrats and Barack Obama went ahead and passed ObamaCare into law.  In 2010, they were punished for such action with a sweeping defeat that reversed their majority rule in the House of Representatives.  Now, in 2014, their control of the Senate is in jeopardy again, thanks to ObamaCare.  The botched rollout; the cancellations; and, the fact that people were losing their doctors and hospitals while paying higher prices for their insurance re-emphasized why most Americans dreaded any government involvement in their healthcare. 

While still trying to distance themselves from ObamaCare and all its problems, several in-jeopardy Senate Democrats find themselves with another reason for their voters to oust them in the Fall.  Again, because of healthcare.  This time it's the VA hospital wait-list scandal; proving once more how crass and incompetent a government-run system can be.  Our veterans have literally died in the process of waiting, but, this wait-time scandal should not be a surprise. It is a common problem wherever the government is controlling healthcare.

In Britain, they have a fully socialized system called the National Health Service (NHS). The Democrats love to point to the NHS as a perfect example because it is universal and because it has been able to control costs. It has the lowest cost-per-capita of any other industrialized country in the world.  But, the penalty for such cost control is long wait times and, in some cases, results in death.

The very charter of the NHS legally guarantees that a patient should be able to get advanced care (access to specialists, surgery, hospitalization, or advanced testing) in no less than 18 weeks (nearly 4-1/2 months) after being referred by a primary care physician; access to which is, in itself,  an average wait of about one week.  The usual wait time for surgery is 15 weeks or just over 3-1/2 months with over 500 patients at any given time waiting longer than a year.  If you're injured, the typical wait is 4 hours in the emergency room.  Of course, if you are dying and you just can't wait, the NHS says you can always pay out-of-pocket for private access to any healthcare provider.  Maybe these are the reasons that Britain trails the rest of the world in cancer survival rates.  Now, despite all these problems, the Brits seem to love their NHS.  I  don't think most Americans would be so forgiving.

Now, you don't actually have to go to Britain to see long wait times as a result of government control.  In this country we have the literal blueprint of ObamaCare in the state of Massachusetts. It is something that is informally called RomneyCare.  Thanks to that healthcare system, a city like Boston has the longest wait times in the country for both seeing a primary care physician or receiving advanced care:

In the very place that Americans railed against government intervention in their lives in what we know today as the Boston Tea Party, Bostonians now wait, on average, 45.4 days to see a primary care physician and another 66 days for advanced care.  Thus as a blueprint for ObamaCare, RomneyCare is also the blueprint for what is happening at the VA and in Britain.

The primary reason for long wait times is because the profit incentive is missing.   Healthcare service providers in the NHS are all being paid by the government at a set salary for their particular skill level, and they will always be paid the same; no matter how many patients they see or don't see.  The same is true in the VA hospital system.  Also, in both systems, physicians and hospitals are themselves shielded from malpractice lawsuits because the government is held responsible.  Thus, if someone dies as a result of care being delayed, the doctors and administrators have no liability.  Now, this is not to say that there aren't caring and dedicated people in both the NHS or the VA, but the healthcare in these government run facilities can't hold a candle to the average non-government system in this country.

References:

Your rights in the NHS: Guide to NHS waiting times: http://www.nhs.uk/choiceintheNHS/Rightsandpledges/Waitingtimes/Pages/Guide%20to%20waiting%20times.aspx

NHS waiting lists are at highest for 6 years with 2.8m waiting for surgery or other hospital procedures: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2607418/NHS-waiting-lists-highest-6-years-2-8m-waiting-surgery-hospital-procedures.html

Patients will wait at least a week to see GP in 2014, it is claimed: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/nhs/10537094/Patients-will-wait-at-least-a-week-to-see-GP-in-2014-it-is-claimed.html

NHS delays operations 'as it waits for patients to die or go private': http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8668906/NHS-delays-operations-as-it-waits-for-patients-to-die-or-go-private.html

Britain trails in cancer survival rates: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-125860/Britain-trails-cancer-survival-rates.html
 
In cities, the average doctor wait-time is 18.5 days: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/29/in-cities-the-average-doctor-wait-time-is-18-5-days/

Malpractice Payouts to U.S. Veterans Reach 12-Year High: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-09/malpractice-payouts-to-u-s-veterans-reach-12-year-high.html

The VA Scandal Exposes A Common Government Problem: Bad Management

I think most knowledgeable people on Capitol Hill agree that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has had a backlog of problems for years; if not decades.  So, the full burden of the problem should not be leveled just against the current President.

What makes the current scandal so egregious, however, is the fact that the backlog problems were being fictitiously cleared up by creating two sets of books.  One set, the real-but-pared-down waiting list of  patients, was the one used to roll the statistics upwards to VA management to show that the backlog situation was being well controlled.  Another set was kept secretly and it contained the names of veterans who, for whatever reasons, were intentionally excluded from the official waiting list; and, these people just sat in limbo until some died.  Let me repeat: people died.  For that, Obama and his VA chief, Eric Shinseki, must take responsibility.

It seems like, whenever there is a scandal associated with government, the person at the top of the agency or department involved, was put there solely on the basis of political patronage.  With all the known problems associated with the VA, Obama should have appointed someone who had a track record as a problem solver.  Perhaps, some corporate executive that had turned a failing corporation around. Even a current or former hospital adminstrator would have been a better pick.  At least, then, the person running the VA would have some experience with how hospitals should be run.

Instead, Obama put Eric Shinseki in charge.  And, why?  He was the first high ranking military person to speak out against George Bush's intent to invade Iraq.  Thus, as a darling of the left, the President desperately had to find a job for him in his new cabinet; and, it didn't matter if he really knew anything about the job.

The same could be said about Kathleen Sibelius and the failed roll out of ObamaCare and its website. It just seemed like Obama was hell bent on putting her in some job; any job.  First, she was rumored to be on the short list to be picked as his running mate.  Then, after he won, she was considered to be in the front runner for Secretary of Commerce.  Only, after Tom Daschle was forced to decline the HHS slot (due to another scandal) did Sibelius get the job.  How's that for always being second best?

Also, there's Hillary Clinton when, as head of the State Department, her incompetence lead to the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three others at Benghazi.  In 4 years as Secretary of State, she has nearly zero accomplishments to speak of.  She was only thrown that huge bone of a job because she lost the presidential primary to Barack Obama.

I just wish that the practice of political patronage and bad management would end.  The U.S. government is too large and too complex to have the "cabin boy" at the helm of such critical Departments like the VA.  Political payback is a so ingrained in our political system that I don't see it ever ending unless the people "get mad as hell" instead of getting a feigned "mad as hell" from the very President who put Shinseki in charge and who, obviously, has yet to roll a single head over the scandal.

References:

Dec. 2008: Veterans Resource Network: Eric Shinseki (unqualified); Obama's Pick For VA Secretary: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/raybdavisjr/conversations/messages/1273

Wikipedia: Kathleen Sibelius: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Sebelius

Report: State Dept Ignored Hundreds of Warnings of Benghazi Attack: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/01/16/State-Department-Ignored-Hundreds-of-Warnings-of-Benghazi-Attack