Continuation of Memorial Day thread (Political)

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The first underlined point is something conservatives often don't "get". And I apologize in advance if this seems cruel.

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Yet, it is conservatives that make negative comments about big bloated government. The VA is big government at it's worst.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]BTW: No need to apologize if your point is wrong.[/FONT]

Having to fight for benefits is a result of having strict standards to ensure government funds aren't wasted. If you don't want bureaucrats keeping the people who are entitled to benefits from getting them, you need to give them permission to err on the side of generosity rather than on the side of thrift, and the resources to match. Because if they only get in trouble for saying "yes" when they shouldn't have (that is, wasting taxpayer money), they won't say "yes" when they should (providing needed care).

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Having to fight for VA benefits is a result of a large bureaucracy. That is what the VA is.[/FONT]

The reason [the VA system is] done that way is because it works. It's a tangible sign of our commitment to care for our veterans, and it provides accountability for patient treatment directly to the legislators who pay for it. You wouldn't have seen Congressional inquiries into an HMO that had unreasonable wait times. Such an HMO might get their contract cancelled -- unless their lobbyists could convince legislators otherwise -- or they might have been the only ones that cover the area, in which case they'd have the government over a barrel. But as a private company, there's not a lot the government could do in any case (it's not like the HMO's executives would lose their golden parachutes even if they did lose their jobs).

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]So the people that died were a sign of a system that worked?[/FONT]

And, of course, privatization could make it easy to hide the effects of cutbacks. If you shut down a VA hospital, people know it, and know who it affects. Narrowing of provider networks, increasing co-pays, referrals to overworked providers with unreasonable wait times -- these things are subtle and can't be pinned down as shortchanging veterans. The institutions that care for veterans should be as visible as the ones that turn civilians into veterans in the first place.

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Yet, all of those bad outcomes seems to be happening with Obamacare.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Why does it seem like more government seems to lead to bad outcomes?[/FONT]