More Love for the VA from Shinseki, The New Yorker and Readers Like You

Too often the system of hospitals and clinics run by the Department of Veterans Affairs remains the best-kept secret of American health care.  I wrote about the VA a few weeks ago, and some of you were pleasantly surprised to learn how good the care it provides America’s veterans -- and at less cost, to boot.  Others have also gotten the message.  The VA was praised by Secretary of Veterans Affairs Shinseki during his confirmation hearing, who says he supports the plan to expand coverage to 265,000 non-disabled veterans.  The VA was also pointed to as a foundation to build America’s universal health system in a well-read article by The New Yorker’s Atul Gawande.  People are talking!

The 265,000 new eligibles are so-called Priority 8 veterans – men and women who do not have a disability related to their service who make more than $30,000 a year.  When the priority-level system was enacted as part of the VA reforms of the 1990s, Priority 8 veterans would only be let in if the VA thought it could afford them for that fiscal year.  Even that screeched to a halt in 2003, when Priority 8 eligibility was suspended entirely.  But now the VA is hiring more staff, updating their computer systems and opening its doors once again this summer.  How is VA confident it can handle the influx?  Because it obsessively crunches the numbers about the care it’s providing.  The planning, as always, has been extensive.

Dr. Gawande’s New Yorker article, in which he examines how universal health care arose from existing structures in most countries, has strong praise for the VA as one of the potential structures for our own approach.  He writes:

The veterans’ system has low costs, one of the nation’s best information-technology systems for health care, and quality of care that (despite what you’ve heard) has, in recent years, come to exceed the private sector’s on numerous measures. But it has a tightly limited choice of clinicians—you can’t go to see any doctor you want, and the nearest facility may be far away from where you live.

Despite the lack of choice, he suggests opening the VA system to non-veterans might be a valid way to begin, or that the VA might survive as a mixture of the “old and the new.”  The fact that the VA is getting the respect it deserves in such a discussion, which all too often becomes consumed with questions of Medicare vs. the private industry, is encouraging.

It’s not all sweetness and light – the recent story about a glitch in the VA’s electonic medical records system causing incorrect dosages to be administered to patients is both unacceptable and deeply troubling.  But the more people hear about the VA and the quality of care administered, the less they’ll have to fear government intervention of any sort in health care – and the better it’ll be for all of us.  Indeed, commenter Bob Richards describes the experience better than I ever could:

I have been receiving long-overdue health care for three years now. The care, atmosphere, and professionalism are the best I have ever received. It is what I would like to see every citizen have access to. The coordination is also fantastic, from social work, to GP, from psychiatry, to podiatry, from dental to vision, the care is top-shelf. Oh, and the generic drugs sent to me by mail are (for me) free and effective.

In the past, during my working life, I used HIP, GHI, private health insurance, and out-of-pocket health care. The VA surpassed all my previous experiences by leaps and bounds. It is total care, the way it should be. Their computerized (totally paper-free) system makes it efficient as well. I rarely wait for a clinic visit, the doctors are professional, and go the extra mile. The thoroughness is incredible as well.

The VA system should be made the model for universal health care in America. It's already invented, and it WORKS! I cannot give enough praise about the VA system; it is simply the best health care available in America. I am healthier than I have been in years, and feel I have a real caring partner, truly concerned about me as a person. Kudos to the VA!

(Photo credit:  jmtimages on Flickr.)