Don’t tell the party—my conservative Westport neighbor Herb Schaunaman says his government-run health care is great:
Herb Schaunaman served from from 1973 to 1997 in the U.S. Air Force. He visits the current clinic for physicals and eye exams. He knows that other clinics across the country have had their problems handling veterans’ issues, but he doesn’t see that in Aberdeen, calling himself and his fellow vets fortunate.
“There’s a bunch of us that are real happy with the clinic,” Schaunaman said. “I can’t even think of an example where I’ve had a problem. The people have been super. I feel very comfortable there in person.”
He said there have been days he’s gone in and the waiting room has been nearly full, but he estimates he’s never waited longer than 15 minutes [Kelda J.L. Pharris, “New VA Clinic for Aberdeen in Preliminary Stages,” Aberdeen American News, 2017.09.09].
According to Pharris’s report, the Aberdeen VA clinic has seen a marked increase in patients in recent years. Visits increased from 2,190 in 2010 to 2,574 last year and this year have already reached 2,583.
Schaunaman is one of 2,679 veterans in Brown County who can get super, low-wait health care from Uncle Sam at the Aberdeen VA outpatient clinic. The clinic serves Brown and five other South Dakota counties with a veteran population of 4,516, plus probably a few hundred more in Dickey County across the border.
CNN gives a timeline of the VAs many problems: http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/23/politics/va-scandals-timeline/index.html
Does CNN give a similar timeline of private hospitals’ many problems?
Research: Patients report lower satisfaction with VA hospitals than with non-VA hospitals and behavioral health measures are worse (perhaps veterans bring home more behavioral health issues?), but “VA hospitals in general have equal or better outcomes on certain quality measures.”
And Herb likes his VA care in Aberdeen a lot.
Nice timeline. Goes way back and cruises through the years barely paying lip service until 2014 under you know what Potus-there are 17 entries. Just saying.
Most veterans are chronic complainers. Just look at the ones that post on FreePress. I know many who use VA hospitals and most think they’re just as good as civilian hospitals. The biggest gripe is long wait times and that comes directly from Republican’s refusal to fund the program aka “Don’t raise taxes because second rate is good enough as long as I get an extra hundred bucks at the end of the year!”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201107/how-deal-chronic-complainers
Oh goodness Mike, CNN is liberal get in touch with your defensiveness.
The VA system has had some very low periods, but one could say it’s the competition among hospitals that has elevated standards, and while they may not directly compete that would raise quality of care standards, and I think with Tri-Care they can go elsewhere.
Competition works why are you so afraid of it? Single payer is not the only solution, or necessarily the best one. Probably it ain’t with everything we’ve learned about the British system which has been in crisis. Me thinks you need to do a little more research!
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/nhs-uk-now-has-one-of-the-worst-healthcare-systems-in-the-developed-world-according-to-oecd-report-a6721401.html
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/06/nhs-faces-humanitarian-crisis-rising-demand-british-red-cross
Mr. Lansing is righter than right.
Can’t you see that competition has raised the wages in our state finally, so working men and women can earn a living wage, but cheapskate employers are crying, so the “Progressives” team up with those turkeys to try and screw them over. The best thing for minorities is to learn English you ain’t helpin nobody cause you don’t know the world works basically.