The US already HAS fully government funded healthcare... and it's pretty successful!

[Red Dawn]

Keep in mind The Republicans will gain power again someday and do to UHC what they did to the VA.

 

[alchemize]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: alchemize
So when are the democrats introducing legislation that we roll out the VA to all citizens?

When Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats aren't voted into office anymore

So this thread is completely moot, glad you agree.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: alchemize

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: alchemize
So when are the democrats introducing legislation that we roll out the VA to all citizens?

When Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats aren't voted into office anymore

So this thread is completely moot, glad you agree.

Based on your 'logic' we can stop talking about breaking the teacher's union and getting rid of the dept of education

 

[alchemize]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: alchemize

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: alchemize
So when are the democrats introducing legislation that we roll out the VA to all citizens?

When Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats aren't voted into office anymore

So this thread is completely moot, glad you agree.

Based on your 'logic' we can stop talking about breaking the teacher's union and getting rid of the dept of education

I'm not posting threads about breaking the teacher's union, and neither is anyone else. Would make for interesting discussion, but yes, it's also moot.

 

[themusgrat]

Based upon any "logic" you can stop posting in this thread Phokus, VA health care is not very successful, it's cherry picking just as you accused the Indian health care thread of, and beyond that, you made the thread.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: alchemize

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: alchemize

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: alchemize
So when are the democrats introducing legislation that we roll out the VA to all citizens?

When Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats aren't voted into office anymore

So this thread is completely moot, glad you agree.

Based on your 'logic' we can stop talking about breaking the teacher's union and getting rid of the dept of education

I'm not posting threads about breaking the teacher's union, and neither is anyone else. Would make for interesting discussion, but yes, it's also moot.

No, it's not moot as we are discussing ideas whether or not they will ever be implemented. You could make the argument that republicans should just stop posting arguments about what you want america to be altogether then because your ideas won't be implemented in the near future.

Also: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...key=y&keyword1=teacher

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: themusgrat
Based upon any "logic" you can stop posting in this thread Phokus, VA health care is not very successful, it's cherry picking just as you accused the Indian health care thread of, and beyond that, you made the thread.

VA care is not successful because i say so, please ignore the Rand Corporation, New England Journal of Medicine and Annals of Internal care as they are all left leaning organizations and their studies should be discounted.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
I still want an answer to this perfectly simple question: if you were in St. Louis and had the choice between receiving care at Barnes-Jewish or VA's John Cochran Medical Center, which would you choose?

I wouldn't know, i've never been to either of those hospitals. It's possible Barnes-Jewish is the best private care hospital in north america and John Cochran is the worst VA hospital in north America. That's why anecdotes don't mean much to me.

Yeah...right. Meanwhile a man accidently shoots his wife and you start an "oh noes...guns are scary" thread.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
I still want an answer to this perfectly simple question: if you were in St. Louis and had the choice between receiving care at Barnes-Jewish or VA's John Cochran Medical Center, which would you choose?

I wouldn't know, i've never been to either of those hospitals. It's possible Barnes-Jewish is the best private care hospital in north america and John Cochran is the worst VA hospital in north America. That's why anecdotes don't mean much to me.

Yeah...right. Meanwhile a man accidently shoots his wife and you start an "oh noes...guns are scary" thread.

Except i wasn't making an argument for gun control (it was everyone else on both sides of the aisle who shit their pants and started taking the story way too seriously), that was originally an ATOT thread (but got moved by a zealous mod).

 

[themusgrat]

It's definitely not bad, and there are definitely shining examples of good VA hospitals, but in general it is not the huge success you think it is. Moreover, it would be very difficult and costly to apply that system to all of America. Any system that we implement will not be very close to VA social health care, so making an argument for/against UHC based upon VA health care, no matter what statistics you quote, is misleading.

 

[mattpegher]

Phokus, I know your just going to say that this is just anectodal evidence but I wouldnt rely on the VA to save my dog. I had a patient that I diagnosed with possible tumor in the ER, the man needs a thorough workup including a CT. I try to contact his doc at the VA ( the 4th one in 3 years) I cant even get a hold of the office let alone the physician, I continue to try to call and eventually get a hold of some dip shit that couldn't care less about this poor guy. Don't give me stats, I have dealt with VA patients for years and getting their VA primary care guys to take care of them is impossible. But I am sure that you will continue to believe this crap and not those of us who really know.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: mattpegher
Phokus, I know your just going to say that this is just anectodal evidence but I wouldnt rely on the VA to save my dog. I had a patient that I diagnosed with possible tumor in the ER, the man needs a thorough workup including a CT. I try to contact his doc at the VA ( the 4th one in 3 years) I cant even get a hold of the office let alone the physician, I continue to try to call and eventually get a hold of some dip shit that couldn't care less about this poor guy. Don't give me stats, I have dealt with VA patients for years and getting their VA primary care guys to take care of them is impossible. But I am sure that you will continue to believe this crap and not those of us who really know.

That's kind of the problem

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Phokus
I wouldn't know, i've never been to either of those hospitals. It's possible Barnes-Jewish is the best private care hospital in north america and John Cochran is the worst VA hospital in north America. That's why anecdotes don't mean much to me.

So where are these peer-reviewed articles you speak so highly of? You don't like anecdotes, but that's apparently all we have going here.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Phokus
I wouldn't know, i've never been to either of those hospitals. It's possible Barnes-Jewish is the best private care hospital in north america and John Cochran is the worst VA hospital in north America. That's why anecdotes don't mean much to me.

So where are these peer-reviewed articles you speak so highly of? You don't like anecdotes, but that's apparently all we have going here.

Unless you're suggesting the stats were fabricated by the author

Here's the NEJM one

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/348/22/2218

Results In fiscal year 2000, throughout the VA system, the percentage of patients receiving appropriate care was 90 percent or greater for 9 of 17 quality-of-care indicators and exceeded 70 percent for 13 of 17 indicators. There were statistically significant improvements in quality from 1994?1995 through 2000 for all nine indicators that were collected in all years. As compared with the Medicare fee-for-service program, the VA performed significantly better on all 11 similar quality indicators for the period from 1997 through 1999. In 2000, the VA outperformed Medicare on 12 of 13 indicators.

Conclusions The quality of care in the VA health care system substantially improved after the implementation of a systemwide reengineering and, during the period from 1997 through 2000, was significantly better than that in the Medicare fee-for-service program. These data suggest that the quality-improvement initiatives adopted by the VA in the mid-1990s were effective.

i'll go searching for the others later

 

[Phokus]

Actually i think i accidentally found the annals of internal medicine one:

http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/141/12/938

i'll go through it later to make sure it's the one that the article is referencing (gotta go), nonetheless, it has a positive conclusion about VA care:

Results: Patients from the VHA scored significantly higher for adjusted overall quality (67% vs. 51%; difference, 16 percentage points [95% CI, 14 to 18 percentage points]), chronic disease care (72% vs. 59%; difference, 13 percentage points [CI, 10 to 17 percentage points]), and preventive care (64% vs. 44%; difference, 20 percentage points [CI, 12 to 28 percentage points]), but not for acute care. The VHA advantage was most prominent in processes targeted by VHA performance measurement (66% vs. 43%; difference, 23 percentage points [CI, 21 to 26 percentage points]) and least prominent in areas unrelated to VHA performance measurement (55% vs. 50%; difference, 5 percentage points [CI, 0 to 10 percentage points]).

Conclusions: Patients from the VHA received higher-quality care according to a broad measure. Differences were greatest in areas where the VHA has established performance measures and actively monitors performance.

 

[Phokus]

Also, more about the Rand Corporation study:

According to a Rand Corp. study, the VA system provides two-thirds of the care recommended by such standards bodies as the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality. Far from perfect, granted -- but the nation's private-sector hospitals provide only 50%. And while studies show that 3% to 8% of the nation's prescriptions are filled erroneously, the VA's prescription accuracy rate is greater than 99.997%, a level most hospitals only dream about. That's largely because the VA has by far the most advanced computerized medical-records system in the U.S. And for the past six years the VA has outranked private-sector hospitals on patient satisfaction in an annual consumer survey conducted by the National Quality Research Center at the University of Michigan. This keeps happening despite the fact that the VA spends an average of $5,000 per patient, vs. the national average of $6,300.

pretty impressive by the VHA, that's actually pretty fucking scary that private care can fuck up prescriptions so badly

http://www.businessweek.com/ma...ent/06_29/b3993061.htm

 

[StageLeft]

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

I see a thread in which phokus is coming up with a lot of numbers but literally everybody (unless a dissenter has come in near the end) has an exactly opposite experience and says the VA sucks.

Perhaps the numbers are not being interpreted properly or we have found an extremely rare case in which all of the anecdotal information, despite being of a high consensus, is wrong. It's possible, I suppose.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
What we have here is a failure to communicate.

I see a thread in which phokus is coming up with a lot of numbers but literally everybody (unless a dissenter has come in near the end) has an exactly opposite experience and says the VA sucks.

Perhaps the numbers are not being interpreted properly or we have found an extremely rare case in which all of the anecdotal information, despite being of a high consensus, is wrong. It's possible, I suppose.

If you look at the political leanings of the dissenters, that may clue you in as well. If a right leaning person witnesses an instance where the VA fucks up, i wouldn't be surprised if they subconciously attributes that to a systemic flaw of the VA system. This is why studies are done and we don't judge how good or bad the VA is based on anecdotal evidence.

Nobody says the VHA doesn't make mistakes, or provides poor care in instances, but you don't apply that one instances and make conclusions about the systems based on a personal experience.

for example:

And while studies show that 3% to 8% of the nation's prescriptions are filled erroneously, the VA's prescription accuracy rate is greater than 99.997%, a level most hospitals only dream about.

in the .003% instance where the VA fucks up a prescription, someone who hears about that particular instance may go, "AH HA!, I KNEW SOCIALIZED MEDICINE WAS A BAD IDEA!", even though the VHA's accuracy rate in filling prescriptions is astronomically better than private care which has a failure rate of 3-8 percent

 

[Alienwho]

I haven't read the thread but I have a health care related question.

I work for a company that pays for my insurance, but I still have to pay $300/month to insure my wife. The cost will only increase as I have kids. I don't see government health care costing me anywhere near $300/month in increased taxes. Why shouldn't I be pro health government-run health care?

 

[TheSkinsFan]

If their goal is to create a universal system, using the VA as the standard, we are all totally and royally fucked.

 

[TheSkinsFan]

Originally posted by: Alienwho
I haven't read the thread but I have a health care related question.

I work for a company that pays for my insurance, but I still have to pay $300/month to insure my wife. The cost will only increase as I have kids. I don't see government health care costing me anywhere near $300/month in increased taxes. Why shouldn't I be pro health government-run health care?

What makes you think that the tax increases would amount to less than $300/mo?

Also, what you say if I told you that the quality of care your family receives will diminish dramatically? Would that be acceptable to you?

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: TheSkinsFan
If their goal is to create a universal system, using the VA as the standard, we are all totally and royally fucked.

Patient satisfaction services for the VA rank them between 5 and 10 points higher in satisfaction than the private system. Furthermore, 2006 costs per capita from the VA were around 33% less than the US as a whole. (about $4k per person vs. about $6k per person)

 

[MikeMike]

you know why? because its FREE that is why, no one bitches, its free, who cares how good, its free!

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: MIKEMIKE
you know why? because its FREE that is why, no one bitches, its free, who cares how good, its free!

Sure they don't. Have you ever set foot in a VA hospital? I have. In fact I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for the VA health care system. I've been to both private and VA hospitals and the quality of care there is every bit as good if not better. Try again.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

http://www.mercurynews.com/topstories/ci_12889226

VA says glaucoma patients at Palo Alto facility suffered severe vision loss due to mistreatment

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has confirmed its Palo Alto facility put the chief of optometry on administrative leave and reassigned another optometrist while it recently investigated the treatment of hundreds of eye patients, some of whom experienced significant vision loss under the department's care.

How fitting. I open up local news and this is what I see on the front page.