No, not “any” veterans – just the ones who have reason to complain, which are a small minority. Most veterans will tell you that they had adequate and attentive care. How do I know that? Because most veterans have said exactly that in surveys. You know, that’s something the private sector doesn’t do – monitor quality of care in the system. How long do you have to wait for a procedure in the US? Nobody knows, because nobody keeps track. The only reason you know about waiting times in Canada and the UK is because the government measures waiting times, so that they can be managed; in the US, nobody’s really keeping track, so liars are able to say “we don’t wait in the US”, which everyone knows is false but no one has any data to contradict.

Did we forget about how outraged everyone was when we found out Walter Reed was giving out shitty care to vets coming back from Iraq?

That’s your best example? The one hospital the VA tried running like a private insurer would? Wow, amazing. What a compelling case for the status quo.

If that isn’t enough, there is still the fundamental question of “should we force people to pay for the healthcare of others?”

It seems like that question has been answered. If you buy health insurance, you’re paying for other people’s healthcare and they’re paying for yours. The very concept of insurance is you paying for other people’s carelessness, negligence, and bad luck. And they pay for yours.

If you think that’s a fundamentally flawed concept, go cancel your insurance policies. All of them. Once you’ve accepted, though, that healthcare is a public good it makes sense to have it publicly administered.

There is no way in the world that you can make that case because it’s simply not true.

It simply is true. Look, you will never need a book, or a burger, so bad that if you don’t get it right then at whatever price, you will die. You can be in that situation with healthcare, though, which is why a market can’t deliver health care the way it delivers burgers and books. I mean you can need healthcare so bad you’re not even conscious. How are the unconscious supposed to shop around?

I mean, obviously. What is wrong with you people?

Offhand, because it would do more damage to Target and K-Mart. Wally World and Sam’s Club do pay above minimum wage even for cashiers (granted, not MUCH, but enough that a minimum wage increase wouldn’t bother them).

I personally would rather eat broken glass than go into a Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club nowadays (I used to /work/ for a Sam’s Club, yay). Frankly, the service has become spotty and slipshod; emblematic of this is the Wally World habit of having fifteen lanes in their front checkout — with only one manned.

Bullshit. There is no way in the world that you can make that case because it’s simply not true.

To be fair to Chet, the inefficiency isn’t always a natural consequence of government. Sometimes it’s just due to the graft and corruption endemic to our faceless unaccountable bureaucracy. But mostly it’s a natural consequence of extra layers of overhead costs and lack of competition.

You make statements like “it will costs far less to provide the same amount of care than hundreds of private heath insurance companies” with nothing to support that claim.

And you completely ignore the policies our government has implemented that has played a signicant role in the rising costs of healthcare in America.

If that isn’t enough, there is still the fundamental question of “should we force people to pay for the healthcare of others?” Should we be forced to pay for the healthcare costs of Obama’s lung disease that he will develope from his smoking habit? Or pay for the healthcare costs of people who refuse to exercise and eat shitty food? If we have a universal healthcare system, will it suddenly be ok to start dictating every part of our lives from our salt intake to forcing us into gym memberships? The slope is steep and slipery.

http://i.walmart.com/i/if/hmp/fusion/genericdruglist.pdf

Not to mention once Wal-Mart did it everyone else jumped on the band wagon. Target, Safeway, Kroger, Giant, Walgreens ect…

I wish.

There is not a single item we purchase that couldn’t be found cheaper at our local stores or amazon, but we are not allowed to use those resources.

See, this is the sort of absurd, overly simplistic analysis that completely drains the credibility from your side. Cliff is probably beyond all hope but is this the kind of justification the rest of you find compelling? Seriously? Health care isn’t like anything you can buy at Amazon. It’s a fundamentally different type of good. (And anyway as an employee of the USDA a few years ago I didn’t see anybody have any problems buying something they needed from a “local store or Amazon.” The inefficiencies of government are largely exaggerated, and often can’t compare to the absurd inefficiencies of the private sector.)

I am a government worker. My observations on everything from flashcards to million dollar purchases is that government run anything is MORE expensive not less. There is not a single item we purchase that couldn’t be found cheaper at our local stores or amazon, but we are not allowed to use those resources.

Chet, you are simply wrong about the fact it would cost less.

The problem isn’t so much who pays, it’s the fact that our government continues to reduce the supply of healthcare. The VA is a prime example. Limited facilities and staff creating long lines and wait times. That drives up costs, not insurnace companies and no profit seeking companies. Get rid of certificates of needs, stop creating qoutas for med schools, create some tort reform to reign in malpractise insurance, and maybe people could afford health care on their own. Until our government allows supply to meet demand, it’s going to be expensive no matter who pays.

I don’t even know where to start with this one.

Sorry, it’s neither here nor there. It just continues to be amusing how libertarians keep standing up in favor of the status quo in health care – an enormous conglomerate of huge moneyed interests that works against public health, physician prerogative, and consumer choice.

My wife is a physician at a VA hospital, and trust me, you don’t want that kind of care. She treats cancer patients. Although there are multiple machines that could treat the veterans’ cancers IN THE SAME HOSPITAL SYSTEM in the SAME city (but not technically in the VA), they are required by the rules to drive hundred of miles to our state capitol, where the only VA hospital with the actual machines located inside the VA is. Every single VA patient from the ENTIRE state has to go to a single hospital to get treated. As you can imagine, there are pretty lengthy waiting lists to get treatments on those various machines, which means that with aggressive cancers, many lose quite a bit of actual life on earth. Sure, it’s easy to treat the VA patients’ delays as negative externalities, that is, until it happens to you or someone you love.

My wife always says: “We already have universal healthcare. It’s called the VA and it SUCKS!”

In truth, quality declined due to the monomaniacal focus on the monitored indicators. (Other important quality issues were ignored.) One of the good indicators for diabetes care was dropped from the monitoring list in 2005. Immediately, VA facilities pulled the monitoring and reminder program off their computers. I asked why it was removed, and the administors replied that only monitored indicators get computer support. They were afraid that retaining ‘useful but not monitored’ indicators would “distract” the doctors. Doctors had no say in that decision, and that aspect of diabetes care declined.

People forget that Wal-Mart has another reason to get on the good side with the Obama administration regarding health care: scores of Wal-Mart stores have medical clinics, and the number of clinics has been rising rapidly. Perhaps Wal-Mart expects to gain medical customers under ObamaCare. Perhaps Wal-Mart’s clinics hope to get special financial considerations for being among the first to support ObamaCare.

to see how the government has already succeeded with one: ” In 2003, the New England Journal of Medicine crunched the numbers, comparing Medicare and the VA on a broad range of health indicators, from preventative care to chronic care to inpatient care to outpatient care. By 2000, the VA had better indicators than Medicare in 12 of 13 categories.”