Single Payer Health Care

The problems of a single payer health care system have been with us for longer than most Americans  know, or will admit. 

With the recent experience of Obamacare and its ramifica-tions, this issue came to the forefront of the nation's aware-ness. However, when Congress passed into existence the Veterans Administration in 1930, the nation's first single payer model was established. True, it was only for a specific sector of the populace, but it has become the prime example - even in a capitalist society - of just how horrible it can be when it comes to service of patients.

Back when it was established, and through the '30s, '40s and even into the '60s, the V.A. was generally considered decent and reasonable because it was taking care of the medical needs of our men who had served in our military. Despite advances in the medical field, the government funded agency has, over time, experienced difficulty with sufficient funds to implement those changes and new technology. Advance-ments in technology have always been expensive.

Then too, time and the rotation of staff retiring and being replaced by newly trained staff coming into the system, combined with the introduction of new programs and layers of management to run them, this bureaucracy grew to mammoth proportions. With that growth, especially post Vietnam, Gulf War, and Afghanistan, the influx of patients needing care across a growing array of conditions of care needed, the combination has proven disastrous for the level of service they've received... in more than one way.

The latest, and most disturbing situation we've become aware of was in certain cities around the nation during the Obama administration. Those V.A. facilities management being so bad that too many veterans died as a result of waiting for treatment for their condition. In some situations, it has been found that leadership was setting policy to "doctor" their data reported to V.A. headquarters.

Now, three to four years later, the same top Director who's been carried over into the new federal administration, is feeling the heat and changing much of the older, less competent management from the ranks. Fortunately for veterans, few, if any, have died in the interim. Let's hope continued improvements are made, but it's still the model of U.S. single payer health care where bureaucracy is its worst.