Clinton Fixed the VA System and Bush Broke It, Betraying Our GIs

[papau]

Lessons from Walter Reed: Clinton Fixed the VA System and Bush Broke It, Betraying Our GIs 3/8

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/scoop/issues/070307scoop.html

Lessons from Walter Reed
by Mark Kleiman


Over the last few years, it's become increasingly clear that conservatives have an all-purpose response to any public-management disaster that happens on their watch, from New Orleans to Baghdad: "What do you expect?" they ask. "We told you government was incompetent and corrupt by nature. That's why we need to shrink it "to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub," in Grover Norquist's famous phrase. It's a clever heads-I-win-tails-you-lose game. When something goes right on conservatives' watch, that just shows the advantage of "running government like a business" (complete with a "CEO-in-chief" - are we having fun yet?) and outsourcing as much government activity as possible to private contractors (who also happen to be major GOP contributors). When something goes wrong, it's just another sign of government's inherent ineffectiveness, and a reason to re-elect the party of small government.

Since the recent exposure of horrific conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other military medical facilities around the country, many Republicans have tried to apply this trick to the growing scandal. Helped by some sloppy journalists, they've encouraged the widespread belief that Walter Reed is part of the Veterans Administration—and its mismanagement is therefore another piece of evidence in their brief against "big government", and, of course, "socialized medicine." In an example of this misdirection, President Bush recently announced a federal investigation into both military medical care and VA medical care in the wake of the scandal.

But of course Walter Reed is run by the Army, with the help of those private contractors Republicans love because they're so efficient (and so generous at campaign season). As for the VA medical system—it did used to be terrible; I recall medical-resident friends joking about "practicing veterinary medicine," because the VA treated its patients like animals. But it was fixed under President Clinton, and now, as the Monthly reported in 2005 has the best quality and customer-satisfaction numbers in the entire health-care system. The VA also leads the way in the use of information technology to improve quality and cut cost.

The Bush administration is planning to starve the VA financially, but so far hasn't badly damaged it operationally—though of course it's been busy messing up Iraq, with the help of contractors and CPA staff hired for reasons of political loyalty rather than competence. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, on the other hand, has completed the round trip, from pork-and-patronage cesspit under Reagan and Bush Sr., to superb disaster-relief agency under Clinton, back to cesspit under Bush, Jr. Part of the difference is that Clinton appointed a disaster-relief professional to run FEMA, while Bush first went with his campaign manager, and then his campaign manager's old college buddy, Heckuva Job Brownie. (At least Brown at FEMA wasn't in nearly as sensitive a position as Bernie Kerik, Giuliani's sleazeball former driver, who Bush wanted to run the Department of Homeland Security). <snip>


Mark Kleiman is Professor of Public Policy at UCLA. He blogs at The Reality-Based Community www.samefacts.com

[Monkeyman]

1. I can tell you this much in the 70s the VA was the pit

In the 80s not much better. Under Daddy Bush it was just bad. Under Bill Clinton the VA's where getting better. Now under Dubba it is getting so bad vets are going to private hospitals. I think that's what Dubba wants

[papau]

4. I agree - early 60's VA care was solid -then Nixon sold it down the river & it never recovered until

Clinton began the recovery in the 90's.

[MADem]

2. That is entirely true, that subject headline. NT

[Solo_in_MD]

5. The headline is FALSE

The VA has been going downhill fast for a generation. Clinton did not in anyway change that.

[Monkeyman]

6. Disagree I saw it get better

I had to go to the VA for years due to the Orange no other doctors will touch it

[Solo_in_MD]

8. I saw it continue its death spiral

[MADem]

7. No, he pumped a shitload of dough into the VA

And I personally know some who benefitted from the Agent Orange funding and the Gulf War clinic established at Walter Reed. Togo West worked hard.

Under his leadership, the VA has begun to confront some long- neglected problems head-on, reaching out to more than 400,000 veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange, pressing for answers to the Gulf War syndrome and proper care for those who suffer from it, beginning the process of building five new national cemeteries, the most since the Civil War, and making a special effort to bring homeless veterans back into the society they did so much to defend.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0007/10/se.02.html

[papau]

9. Well said - and well sourced/documented :-) n/t

n/t

[sam sarrha]

3. Clinton appropriated 150 billion to make NOLA safe and W looted nearly all of it