Quote:
Originally Posted by pyramider
If the VA is so good in administering health care to our veterans, why is it so many veterans avoid the VA like its latrine duty?
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That is a false statement. Please provide your source. Otherwise, I invite you to do your own independent research on this issue rather than relying on hearsay. Objective information is readily available; you need only take the time to find it. For a start, here's a newspaper article that summarizes the issue. You can take it from there.
http://tucsoncitizen.com/medicare/20...rnment-report/
A recent report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the VA (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) does a much better job controlling health care costs than the private sector delivery system which is used by Medicare and all private sector insurance plans.
The CBO estimates that the VA’s health care cost per enrollee grew by only 1.7 % from 1999 to 2005, which amounts to 0.3% annually. Medicare’s costs grew 29.4 % per capita over that same period, or 4.4 % per year. In the private sector insurance market (employer and individual plans) premiums increased by more than 70% during this period.
The CBO report also says that the
VA scores better than the private sector when it comes to patient/customer satisfaction. In 2005, the VA achieved a satisfaction score of 83 out of 100 for inpatient care and 80 out of 100 for outpatient care. The same survey showed private-sector providers of got 73 for inpatient care and 75 for outpatient care.
Phillip Longman wrote a book titled Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Healthcare is Better than Yours. He is quoted in a May 28th
health care blog saying, “In study after study published in peer‐reviewed journals, the VA beats other health care providers on virtually every measure of quality. These include patient safety, adherence to the protocols of evidence medicine, integration of care, cost‐effectiveness, and patient satisfaction. The VA is also on the leading edge of medical research, due to its close affiliation with the nation’s leading medical schools, where many VA doctors have faculty positions.”
The VA system is responsible for 24 million veterans and treated about 5.5 million last year. It has a budget of $50 billion and operates more than 1,400 VA facilities, including 950 outpatient clinics, 153 hospitals and 134 nursing homes. The VA computerized patient records system is recognized as cutting edge and a model for controlling costs for Medicare and the private sector.
So why didn’t the recent health care debate focus on the VA as a model for a re-designed American health care system that can control costs and deliver top-notch care? The answer is that the VA system, where the government owns the hospitals, clinics, and labs, and employs the doctors and nurses….. is socialized medicine.
Here is one more:
http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001836.html
Government-run health care - how bad is it? There's been a minor flurry of articles about the Veteran's Administration health care system recently, a flurry that is both welcome and a bit tardy. It would have been helpful indeed if these had come out during the furor over health reform. Better late than never.
Let's tackle cost first. The CBO's most recent
report indicates the
VA does a much better job controlling cost than the private sector delivery system (used by Medicare). According to the CBO,
"Adjusting for the changing mix of patients (using data on reliance and relative costs by priority group), the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that VHA's budget authority per enrollee grew by
1.7 percent in real terms from 1999 to 2005 (0.3 percent annually) [emphasis added] .2 Though not the decline in cost per capita that is suggested by the unadjusted figures, that estimate still indicates some degree of cost control when compared with Medicare's real rate of growth of 29.4 percent in cost per capita over that same period (4.4 percent per year)."
In contrast, the
private insurance sector [pdf] saw premiums increase over 70% over the same period (I know this isn't exactly apples-to-apples, but no matter how you slice the apple, 70% is still a lot more than 1.7%)
How about
patient satisfaction? Again, the
VA scores better than the private sector.
"In 2005, VA achieved a satisfaction score of 83 (out of 100) on the ACSI for inpatient care and 80 (out of 100) for outpatient care, compared with averages for private-sector providers of 73 for inpatient care and 75 for outpatient care...For VA, the scores for inpatient and outpatient care were 84 and 83, respectively, while the average scores for the private sector were 79 and 81."
In the press, Maggie Mahar
posted on Phillip Longman's new edition of Best Care Anywhere; Why VA Healthcare is Better than Yours; quoting Longman's foreword "Health care quality experts hail it [the VA health care system] for its
exceptional safety record, its use of evidence-based medicine, its heath promotion and wellness programs, and its unparalleled adoption of electronic medical records and other information technologies. Finally, and most astoundingly, it is
the only health care provider in the United States whose cost per patient has been holding steady in recent years, even as its quality performance is making it the benchmark of the entire health care sector."
Merrill Goozner published an
interview with Longman, who noted "In study after study published in peer‐reviewed journals, the VA beats other health care providers on virtually every measure of quality. These include patient safety, adherence to the protocols of evidence medicine, integration of care, cost‐effectiveness, and patient satisfaction. The VA is also on the
leading edge of medical research, due to its close affiliation with the nation's
leading medical schools, where many VA doctors have faculty positions."
Longman's
book is a timely update to his 2007 edition, providing new insights into the effectiveness of the VA's VistA IT infrastructure and coverage of adoption by the private sector of VistA.
Another recent
article noted the system is responsible for 24 million veterans (treating about 5.5 million last year), has a budget of "$50 billion and operates more than 1,400 care sites, including 950 outpatient clinics, 153 hospitals and 134 nursing homes."
The piece quoted Elizabeth McGlynn, associate director of Rand Health and author of a study of the VA: "You're much better off in the VA than in a lot of the rest of the U.S. health-care system," she said. "You've got a fighting chance there's going to be some organized, thoughtful, evidence-based response to dealing effectively with the health problem that somebody brings to them."
