Amid the all the outrage and hand wringing over the “scandal” at the VA, most commentators seem to be missing the point. Of course there are stark differences in the presentation depending on the source. Even some of the carcinogenic elements at MSNBC concede that the administration has a problem on its hands, while the fake conservatives at Fox News do their happy dance.
The elephant in the room that so few are willing to discuss, is that this isn’t really a scandal. This is socialized medicine, and it’s working just fine, thank you very much. Working as designed. As planned. You want to know what the Affordable Care Act is going to look like once fully implemented? Look no further than this, the slice of medicine that we’ve socialized to one degree or another for the entire history of our nation.
The Department of Veterans Affairs was officially established as full-on cabinet-level organization within the federal government in 1989, and grew out of the Veteran’s Administration established in 1930. The Veteran’s Administration can trace it’s origins back to 1636 when the settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony agreed to financially support the veterans disabled in the war with the Pequot nation. Based on the principals of voluntary and localized socialism, I would assert that this worked out pretty well. I would be happy to read any source material to the contrary, so if some libtard would like to dig up the diary of a disabled veteran from the 17th century who wrote how he was getting jacked over by the system, by all means. Along the way, the Feds got involved and certain milestones were hit by both the Continental Congress and the U.S. Congress during the 18th and 19th centuries. You can read a succinct summery of it here. The sub-point is that 1636 was probably the last time residents of the North American Continent got to vote directly on the issue.
Those of us who were of voting age back in the 1990’s will recall that part of what killed the Clinton Administration’s attempt to socialize the rest of the U.S. medical system were vociferous comparisons to the VA.
Socialism is a bad idea with very few exceptions, and those exceptions being of a voluntary nature (garbage collection, you and your neighbor agreeing not to poison the shared ground water, etc.).
Grover Cleveland is credited with having said that people get the kind of government they deserve. So the mess at the VA and the disaster of the Affordable Care Act is on us, and only us. Many will say that we didn’t vote for the ACA, but you know what? We did, at least indirectly. Twice. Someone said that bringing the Department of Motor Vehicles business model to health care was a good idea. Then more than 50% of us said, ‘yeah, sure.” We can be forgiven for doing that once in 2008 because the current administration was an unknown quantity. But in 2012, we all knew what who the administration was, who the president was, who was advising him, and what the ACA was. And we voted to keep it anyway.
Facebook Comments