Veteran Administration Hospitals- What To Do With Them

I worked in a VA Hospital for 22 years and never understood the need for a separate hospital system for veterans. Today, with administrative incompetence from top to bottom, there seems to be even less justification for VA hospitals than when I retired in 2000. I expect there are several reasons why, despite their deficiencies, these reflections of the distant past persist in 2016. First, the Veteran's Administration and their hospitals represent a giant corrupt political organization, much the same as the IRS, which is almost impossible to change despite, its obvious faults and multiple short comings. Second, VA hospitals exist because many, if not most, veterans cannot afford private medical care and do not have health insurance. In this respect, I rarely encountered a veteran who came to our VA hospital because they liked the care they would receive at out institution; rather, they came to us because they had no other choice. So, why don't they have another choice? As veterans who served our country, and put their lives on the line while doing so, they should have a choice, don't you agree? The solution to this problem is simple, straight forward and most importantly cost effective. All veterans should be given Medicare A and B and the VA medical care system should be phased out over a 5 to 10 year period. This would allow time for VA employees to relocate in the private sector. There is absolutely no reason for us to continue a two tiered medical system when there is a reasonable doable alternative. At least I can't think of one. Now, most doctors, worth their salt, will not accept Medicare patients who do not have supplemental health insurance because Medicare reinvestment for their services is inadequate to cover the costs inherent in running their practices, let alone allow them to make a reasonable profit. Thus, we will have to provide veterans with a supplemental insurance plan such as Federal Blue Cross and Blue Shield. This coverage will be expensive, but not nearly as costly as funding the 152 VA medical centers and 1400 VA outpatient clinics that now exist. The cost for running this bloated bureaucracy in 2014 was a whopping $152.7 billion. More to the point, it will provide veterans with the finest medical care possible, in a timely fashion, and eliminate a giant incompetent government institution whose sole purpose seems to be to provide jobs for incompetent administrators who can't cut it in the private sector.