Originally Posted By: wfaulk
Originally Posted By: lectric
As to how a national healthcare would perform, all I can say is how can you think they'll treat you any better than they do our veterans? Have you ever seen a VA hospital? Keep in mind, our VA in New Orleans is STILL shut down from Katrina.

First, the government runs the entire military healthcare system, including the VA, from providers to facilities. The healthcare bill has absolutely zero provisions for the government to be making any significant medical decisions; they'll merely be facilitating the purchase of insurance and the distribution of patient records and mandating base levels of coverage.

Second, the reason that the VA doesn't work as well as it ought to is because it's underfunded. There isn't really anything to underfund in the current bill.

It isn't just VA that is a mess. CHAMPUS was absolutely horrific once you were outside a military installation. Healthcare on post/base was decent (that might be my perception because of my father's work), but once you left, all bets were off. The public just sees the VA, they don't see how broken parts of the rest of the system are.

I am much happier with my current healthcare than I ever was with CHAMPUS/Tricare. I don't think the government can run a healthcare program on a national scale, the military system gives evidence to that.