KNOW a VETERAN? READ THIS GODAMN IT!
I have been telling anyone who would listen for many years that one important long term goal for Progressives is to take over the Veteran's Administration Healthcare and turn it into a 'community health care system'. People just ignored me or argued that 'was just silly talk'. Okay, pay attention. Everyone knows that the real goal of Obamacare was 'single payer with no option'. They were unable to force that down our throats so they instituted laws which would, in actual effect, destroy all other options - there is no argument about that. Companies, unions and businesses are now dropping private healthcare plans daily and opting for Obamacare instead - there is no argument about that. Today, President Obama called for a freeze in pay for federal workers. Immediately thereafter, the leadership of the House of Representatives called for a freeze on military pay. Not coinicidentally, the Secretary of Defense called for an increase in payments for the healthcare program used by military veterans - Tricare. He argues that most military veterans have other civilian insurance plans and should not rely on Tricare or should be charged more to do so. Once Tricare becomes 'competitive' veterans will rely on private plans because they offer more benfits. Sooo, when those private plans are forced out of business by Obamacare, veterans will be forced into a single payer plan with no option. The upshot of all this? The question will be asked; 'if the military is now using public healthcare facilities - why shouldn't the public be able to use VA hospitals? The answer? That was the plan all along.
The Veteran's Adminstration has been undergoing a vast overhaul of facilities during the last decade. I have been paying attention. The upgrades are being made to hospitals and clinics that just happen to be in growing communities and are centrally located. The actual upgrades are things like expanded waiting rooms, larger inpatient wards and kitchens etc etc. But there is a curious thing about those 'upgrades'. In the blood work lab where once I stood in line in the hall - it is now a bright cheery waiting room full of chairs and with a large space which can now be used as a play area. Places where veterans used to wait in lines have been replaced with waiting rooms. Wards without air-conditioning now have it. Parking garages have gone up. Cafeterias have grown. It seems as though every 'upgrade' that I have noticed is always with an eye toward an expansion for a need that really does not exist - old vets are dying, remember? The fact is that expansion is geared toward the facilities being incorporated into the community - and what better way to provide a two-tiered healthcare system? The swells and retired union members can continue to go to private hospitals and everybody else will go to the VA hospitals - which have just coincidentally been 'modernized', made community accessible and expanded complete with childhcare, playspaces and lots of seating. Mark my words - in 5 years - VA hospitals will become federally-operated community healthcare clinics serving the military and the community's poor.
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