Dole will push to privatize the VA -

[liberal N proud]

From an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News Dole mentions privatization of the VA.
What is it with these people that they think privatization is the answer to everything?

Stephanopoulos: So many more people are surviving the battlefield.



Dole: What are there, what, 17,000, 18,000 wounded? If this were World War II figures, that figure would probably be, what, 8,000 or 9,000? The others would not have survived.



But now you can be wounded in — or injured in Iraq and be at Walter Reed hospital three or four days later. And…



Stephanopoulos: Yet you'll be dealing with this brain injury for 30, 40, 50 years.



Dole: Right. And — and I haven't made any judgments, but it seems to me that, if the V.A. is not equipped and Department of Defense hospitals are not equipped to deal with these very complex, say, brain injuries, then they ought to go to some private hospital where they are equipped and where they've been doing it for 30, 40, 50 years.

Link to quote:
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/story?id=2941623&page=2

Link to complete interview transcript:
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/story?id=2941623&page=1

[SoCalDem]

1. Sure, Bob,, YOU would have gotten "wonderful" care and had a GREAT

time at a "private" hospital when YOU were wounded.

VA hospitals' whole purpose is to tend to the special needs of veterans and their needs. A young injured veteran needs the camaraderie of his fellow soldiers, not to be sent of to some rehab with elderly stroke patients..

If the VA system cannot "afford" to care for all these wounded vets, then perhaps we should not be starting all these wars :eyes:

[Red Zelda]

2. OK, let's privatize the ENTIRE fucking government

Let's outsource the executive, legislative and judicial branches.
Any takers?
No more voting, unless it's by shareholders.
No more amendments or laws, unless made by corporate decisions.
ANY FUCKING TAKERS, rightwing moonbats?
Next, we'll privatize the churches. The board will tell us who god is.
Wanna keep going?????
Every road a toll road. Every park a pay-as-you-go.

These people are fucking animals.
What a stupid-ass country.

[leeroysphitz]

6. Republicans would privatise the fire department and let your

house burn down if you're behind on your subscription fees if they could get away with it.

[MUAD_DIB]

11. No they wouldn't. They would save your house from the fire, overcharge you a fee

that you couldn't pay and when you fall behind in your payments they would legally have the house taken from you. GOPigs.

[liberal N proud]

12. Halliburton will own the US before it is all done.

[Ezlivin]

3. Private VA = No Accountability

I use the VA for my health care; the Dallas VAMC to be specific.

All it lacks is funding! With proper funding the system works perfectly well. In fact, it is a model of how we could provide quality health care to every American. And since it's run by the government, we have accountability when things go wrong (as at Walter Reed). We can fire people, start investigations, change budgets and take other actions.

These fucking bastards are so intent on ruining this country that they rush to "privatize" everything as if this is some sort of solution.

The government is "of, for and by the people" not corporations!

[havocmom]

4. DoD used to run its own supply convoys for troops in the field

Now Halliburton & subsidiaries do it at a horrendous cost to taxpayers AND troops. The troops are being held hostage by corporations making a mint on questionable privatized contracts. The troops are drinking water with raw sewage in it and getting killed giving cover to PRIVATE convoys. The taxpayer is emptying the national wallet into some CEO accounts and workers there do not pay taxes into the national treasury.

Now, Dole wants more of the same for the troops who manage to make it home breathing?!?!!? :wtf:

Yeah, Dole is a corporate stooge who hates the troops AND the vets! Dole hates America.

[atreides1]

8. You're right

I was in combat support when I was in the army, and we did everything we had to do, to make sure that the line troops got what they needed, but then again we were soldiers too, and had something
in common.

Companies like Halliburton only have one interest and that's money, and in most cases that flows down to the hacks that they hire, I did say in most cases not all. Most of the civilian contractors
don't have a vested interest in making sure that the troops have what they need, because whether they
get the supplies to them or not they still get paid.

[atreides1]

5. Dole must have Alzheimer's

Didn't anyone tell him that privatization was one of the causes of the problems at Walter Reed?

It isn't that the VA or DoD medical facilities aren't equipped, it's because they are not funded properly in the first place.

That wound he suffered in WWII not only affected his right arm it affected the right side of his brain as well!!!!!!

[NDP]

7. Of course he will. Anyone with a brain should have seen this coming. When the media

began this story, they did all that they could not to "blame Bush or the Republicans" for it. They are blaming it on "bureaucracy." That should have been code for "privatization is coming." Universal health care proponents often cite the care veterans receive as a model for single-payer, so instead of blaming the GOP for underfunding veterans care, the media started their "blame the bureaucracy" foolishness to lay the foundation for the GOP privatization push that was to come.

I repeat, as I said last week, anyone should have seen this coming.

[MUAD_DIB]

9. For their ineptitude at doing their job, and being caught red-handed in

their screw up, Dole wants to reward the GPOigs by privatizing the VA and putting it in the hands of one of their donors?

These idiots act like the American public isn't already wise to them. That's why the lost the midterms and will lose bigger in '08. They just don't get it.


How about this. Fix the problem. Don't screw up again, or you will be sent to jail for doing it.


Period.


Works pretty good for me. How about you?

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Because Walter Reed turned out so well

[TreasonousBastard]

13. He's full of shit...

I've been to a VA hospital in New Jersey caring for a lot of Korean and Viet Nam vets with serious psychiatric problems, and some have been there almost all their lives. May even be a couple of WWII guys in there, too.

It's gonna cost money no matter who takes care of them, and I'm not at all convinced that sourcing it out to the private sector is going to cost less. Or get them better treatment. (Remember the Medicare nursing home scandals?)

Public/Private hospitals do have place working within the VA network, just as the VA already shares space with NJ's medical school hospital in East Orange, and New York's Stony Brook and Bellevue. I'm sure this is done elsewhere, but these are the ones I'm personally familiar with.

Fuck, man... a trillion-dollar Pentagon budget and a hundred million or so in medical care they can't come up with?

[bullimiami]

14. privatization is only the answer to shifting public dollars to private corporations.

it can never be more efficient, it can never be cheaper.

all it can give you is an inferior job for more money. because of the profit.

[paparush]

15. ... and Move it to Dubai....

[NNN0LHI]

16. That way NO one has to answer to anybody n/t