Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) Attacks Veterans Health Care

[babylonsister]

Run time: 00:35 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNLCHlO_ywQ   Posted on YouTube: June 10, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: June 10, 2009 By DU Member: babylonsister Views on DU: 1020

 
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/10/coburn-va-healt/

In An Attempt To Criticize Health Reform, Coburn Smears Veteran Health Care As ‘Untenable To Most Americans’

This morning on C-Span, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) laid out his criticism of the proposed public insurance option in Obama’s health reform plan. Like other opponents of reform, Coburn repeated the empty Frank Luntz-engineered talking points that claim “bureaucrats” will be making health decisions. In doing so, Coburn derided the Veterans Health Administration, a program that boasts bipartisan support and has provided American veterans with some of the best health care in the world:

COBURN: If you look at VA even though VA is improving, it’s still not up to the level of health care in the rest of the country. The idea that a bureaucrat somewhere will make decisions about health care and coverage I think is untenable to most Americans. <…> Why be critical of a government run plan, insurance plan? And I’m not alone on this, the fact is, is the government hasn’t proven itself responsible in any health care program that is run so far.

Coburn is quick to disparage the VHA as “untenable to most Americans” and not “up to the level of health care in the rest of the country.” However, the program has provided quality care to millions of sick and injured veterans since its inception:

– An Annals of Internal Medicine study that compared veterans health facilities with commercial managed-care systems in their treatment of diabetes patients found in seven out of seven measures of quality, the VA provided better care.

– The National Committee for Quality Assurance ranked VHA hospitals over non-VHA hospitals like Johns Hopkins, the Mayo Clinic and Massachusetts General.

– A recent study by the RAND corporation found that “VA patients were more likely to receive recommended care” and “received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow up.”

Not only does the VHA provide better quality coverage, but it spends less per patient than other health systems despite having to care for “older, sicker, poorer, and patients more prone to mental illness, homelessness and substance abuse than the population as a whole.”

Though Coburn claims to be a proponent of competition in the health care market, his opposition to a public plan would allow private health insurance companies — who are the largest single industry contributing to Coburn’s campaign coffers — to continue to monopolize the system. “Creating a government-administered health insurance option is a totally different animal from creating a government-run health provider system,” notes Matt Yglesias on Coburn’s misrepresentation of the public option.

A public plan would be a federally backed insurance program that anyone could opt into if they do not have health insurance or if they are not satisfied with their current private health insurance plan. The plan would promote meaningful choice and would create a publicly accountable innovation leader.

[jimmil]

1. From my own experience.....

This is not any study, any government data, anything that approaches a paper. It is only my experience with the VA. During the Clinton years the VA sent me several letters inviting me to check out several of its programs. Many of them were programs aimed at prevention mainly for those who could be defined as poverty ridden. It really was the first time since around 1970 that I had seen such. I was very impressed. The VA was really reaching out and trying to provide health services for veterans. Things were really better at the VA.

When Bush came into office there was an abrupt about face. No longer were those programs being run. Health care was redefined as those injuries that can be directly attributed to service connected disabilities received while in service. You could no longer go to the VA for health services for every day maladies. I know that the VA was supposed to do exactly that, however, for decades the VA was used as a place where veterans could go as a last resort to receive medical attention no matter if the patient had a service connected disability for that or not. It was a great safety net and served the citizens well. When Bush came into office all that stopped. I have no statistics or studies but I would bet a dime to a dollar that this increased visits to ERs around the country with people who normally would go to a VA. Of course it would dramatically increase the cost of such a service to an individual which is passed on to the general public with increased health care costs. I think that by doing what Bush did it reduced the costs to the VA which is what he was driving for but increased costs in other areas that were not under the microscope.

One last remark. Getting into a VA was a pain. You just registered at the front desk and waited for your number to be called. It could be 8 hours of sitting in an uncomfortable chair just to get in to see a doctor. It was a miserable experience. However, once you were in you did get really good care, at least in my opinion. I know of several VAs associated with medical schools and at those you received the latest in care techniques. Although many of the hospitals had the ward bedding it really wasn't bad at all. At least you could talk to folks and such.

[Moral Compass]

2. Sign Governor Dean's Petition and Shove Tom Coburn's Stupidity Up His ....

Folks,

Get online and go to this URL: http://standwithdrdean.com. Governor Dean needs 500,000 signatures, but more would be better.

It is a petition to get the public option on the table. It is not single payer--that's different.

Send it to everyone you know. Talk about it. Argue about it. Fight for it. If you don't no one will. Your representatives and Senators have probably been bought and paid for by the insurance lobby. I know mine have. I live in Texas.

The companies on Tom Coburn's bribe list are terrified of this because with a nationwide insurance pool of a couple hundred million the whole actuarial picture changes. All the big insurers know they're screwed if this happens. And it couldn't happen to a nicer group of people.

Make it happen! If we stand together we are unstoppable.

[Hulk]

3. These head-up-their-ass jerk offs don't get it.....

Have the health insurance industry "proved themselves responsible" by any measure, except to make money?

What an ass hat. Yes, the government programs are not perfect. Yes, they have their flaws and rough spots. But to assume that private health care, which can't even affect 46+ million Americans, are any better is ludicrous.

What a f*cking idiot! I'm tired of this cheap rhetoric!

[wroberts189]

4. Will the pubs just please go home ? PLEASE?

[LaPera]

5. Is Coburn an elitist republican pig or what? It's our tax dollars asshole & we certainly don't want

our dollars going to insurance corporations for profit as they do now....

Just remember - every republican was against & never voted for Social Security either....A very successful government run program (for over 70 years) republicans have been trying to destroy SS from it's inception with lies and the gutting of the fund!!

[DuaneBidoux]

6. And just ask any verteran who has spent 10 sick years, 5 in each system, where they'd rather be.

[cooolandrew]

7. It really does feel there is a huge momentum building on this and it's very exciting. People power!>

I think some protests at insurance offices themselves wouldn't hurt.

[izquierdista]

8. My VA experience

Not me personally, but my mother the WWII vet (Navy nurse corps). She received excellent care from the VA, the longest she had to wait for an appointment was half an hour, and they always sent her medical supplies well in advance of when she might run out. In her later years, I had to take her to her appointments, and the clinics and hospitals struck me as better run than private medical practices I have had to deal with. Maybe it was the fact that for all intents and purposes, it was SINGLE PAYER.

These experiences have colored my view of the health care debates. I think the VA should expand coverage to spouses of vets, and then to their children, and then to their parents, and then finally to distant relatives and friends of veterans, in essence dropping the 'V'.

[CAG]

9. Notice, Coburn didn't have any FACTS to back up his slander on the VA.

Look at the quality of care indicators, then tell me about how the VA stacks up to the insurance companies. The primary problem with the VA is the wait to get in.... gee, Tom, why do so many want to get in??

And the reason they can't get in??? Because the repubs don't want to provide the funding for the additional enrollees, because that will just prove the VA system works even better. The repubs constant MO is to underfund every govt program and then tell the public "see, it doesn't work".