Veteran here. The best healthcare I’ve gotten is consistently the appointments I have at the VA. Y’know… socialized healthcare. The VA has a reputation for being hot garbage - to my understanding they earned the hell out of that reputation, but made pretty massive improvements relatively recently. I only separated a few years ago, so I never say the earlier version.
…the infrastructure is kinda shit, and riding on those elevators is probably more dangerous than anything I ever did on active duty, but the actual health care? Zero complaints.
They do have wait times, but those are comparable to everywhere else.
We always talk about socialized healthcare like it’s some unicorn that only exists in other countries, but we’re already doing it… just, for some reason we’re only doing it for dipshits like me who wandered into the correct star-spangled employer to trade our lumbar vertebrae for a GI Bill.
Between that and the US Public Health Service (who might actually be unicorns… heard of them, but never actually seen one) we’ve got the framework for it. I wish we’d just add subdivisions to the USPHS. We already have the VA (which is curiously not affiliated with them… that surprises me), medicare, tricare, Indian Health Service… Start adding bite-sized categories according to need, and offer VA style coverage. Crime Victims Health Service… Students Health Service… Rent-Food-And-Utilities-Eats-60%±Of-Your-Income Health Service. Just keep expanding the mission and staffing accordingly. Switch VA hospitals to just ‘Federal Hospitals’ that offer VA services… and medicare… and students… etc. Eventually we’ll still be bashing heads about Universal Healthcare when… hey wait a minute! We fuckin have it already! Then just dissolve the stupid labels so you just check in as -a- patient instead of a VA patient. Or not. …probably not, tbh, the govt fucking loves stupid labels.
…
…I don’t actually know why I typed all that out. That was way outside the scope of the comment I’m replying to. Um… I hope you enjoyed my almost-certianly-unrealistic-for-a-thousand-reasons-pipe-dream.
Veteran here. The best healthcare I’ve gotten is consistently the appointments I have at the VA. Y’know… socialized healthcare. The VA has a reputation for being hot garbage - to my understanding they earned the hell out of that reputation, but made pretty massive improvements relatively recently. I only separated a few years ago, so I never say the earlier version.
…the infrastructure is kinda shit, and riding on those elevators is probably more dangerous than anything I ever did on active duty, but the actual health care? Zero complaints.
They do have wait times, but those are comparable to everywhere else.
We always talk about socialized healthcare like it’s some unicorn that only exists in other countries, but we’re already doing it… just, for some reason we’re only doing it for dipshits like me who wandered into the correct star-spangled employer to trade our lumbar vertebrae for a GI Bill.
Between that and the US Public Health Service (who might actually be unicorns… heard of them, but never actually seen one) we’ve got the framework for it. I wish we’d just add subdivisions to the USPHS. We already have the VA (which is curiously not affiliated with them… that surprises me), medicare, tricare, Indian Health Service… Start adding bite-sized categories according to need, and offer VA style coverage. Crime Victims Health Service… Students Health Service… Rent-Food-And-Utilities-Eats-60%±Of-Your-Income Health Service. Just keep expanding the mission and staffing accordingly. Switch VA hospitals to just ‘Federal Hospitals’ that offer VA services… and medicare… and students… etc. Eventually we’ll still be bashing heads about Universal Healthcare when… hey wait a minute! We fuckin have it already! Then just dissolve the stupid labels so you just check in as -a- patient instead of a VA patient. Or not. …probably not, tbh, the govt fucking loves stupid labels.
…
…I don’t actually know why I typed all that out. That was way outside the scope of the comment I’m replying to. Um… I hope you enjoyed my almost-certianly-unrealistic-for-a-thousand-reasons-pipe-dream.
There’s only one reason why this is a pipe dream: there’s no political will to do it.