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October 19, 2010 07:17 PM UTC

Veterans Hit Buck on VA "Outsourcing" Support

  • 22 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

That in the press advisory we got from the Colorado AFL-CIO, based on video of Buck’s appearance on Face the Nation late last month (right):

DENVER-U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck has demonstrated some extreme views, but Veteran’s are up in arms about his stance on wanting to privatize the Veterans’ Administration Hospitals. He declared on Face the Nation that he was in favor of outsourcing the running VA Hospitals to private for- profit corporations. Care of veterans should be a top priority for this country and turning their well-being into a for-profit corporate care machine devalues their distinguished service in keeping America safe.

“Ken Buck’s idea to outsource the VA is horrible,” said Paul Doherty, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force who works for the VA as a program support assistant at the Community-Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC) in Colorado Springs and is the president of AFGE Local 2430. “People go into business to make money. We, workers at the VA, are in the business of taking care of patients–veterans. The veteran is the primary reason for our work. When dealing with a business, the almighty dollar is the reason, and not the patient.  That isn’t right.  It’s outrageous that Buck would endanger the care of our veterans by privatizing their care and services.”

…Tina DeSautels, a veteran of the U.S. Army says, “The VA provides critical services and care for those who have sacrificed so much for our country.  To protect our veterans, we must make sure we don’t have for-profit companies trying to make money off the backs of our veterans. This makes me sick.  The VA was set up so that private companies do not make a profit off of us. And that’s the way it should be. We have thousands of veterans, and we have candidates like Ken Buck who are continually attacking veterans.  While it’s outrageous, unfortunately it’s not surprising.  Right wing candidate after right wing candidate have talked about privatizing the VA, privatizing social security and ending the minimum wage.”

For more on this subject, including notes on the 460,000 veterans in Colorado who aren’t going to like Buck’s opinion of their beloved VA either, check out this recent diary.

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22 thoughts on “Veterans Hit Buck on VA “Outsourcing” Support”

  1. Buck wants to undermine it with more Outsourcing…

    Bucks ignorance is Unbelievable. YET better believe he will do what he can to bolster his wealthy buddies bank accounts. Including Undermine the VA and It’s record of Quality.

    1. Talk to almost any VA doc and you’ll hear stories about slacking, bureaucracy and poor quality. This has been a problem for decades. (Full disclosure: Measuring quality in hospitals is very difficult because they are such complex enterprises. So I’m sure someone has found some statistics that prove VA hospital quality is just great, and others have found stats that show the opposite. I happen to believe the latter.)

      The simple reason is that salaried government employees have no financial incentives to be the best or do their best. I think a lot of the docs are doing their public service or military time at the VA until they can get real jobs and make real money. I don’t mean to belittle the caregivers at the VA, but it’s structured to make delivering quality care very difficult. If a system’s broken, the best people can’t succeed in it.

      Remember, the VA is overseen by politicians. Those politicians, regardless of party, pay little attention to quality issues. They focus on benefits and getting VA facilities built and expanded in their states and districts. They are no more qualified to oversee the VA hospital system than the woman on the street. (I created a “Trustee of the Year” award for hospital trustees back in the 80s, and I know something about hospital governance, having been a hospital board member and having interviewed and even helped update a bunch of trustees over the years).

      So, I think Buck is correct in saying the management of VA hospitals should be outsourced to profit-driven companies whose contracts depend on their ability to deliver cost-effective and quality care.

      Rose, St. Luke’s and Swedish are some of the best hospitals I’ve ever been in and around, and they’re run by HCA, an investor-owned company. I think HCA would do a tremendous job with the VA hospitals. And, no, I no longer know anyone at HCA, which is not publicly owned.

      Over the long term, not-for-profit and investor-owned hospitals are pretty much alike in terms of cost-effectiveness and the quality of their care. The VA hospital is huge and very political. That’s one reason some vocal folks are defending the VA. They have a stake in keeping the VA in the government’s hands, and they’re speaking for themselves more than for VA patients, I think.

      2. If you Google “VA hospital quality” you’ll get this story at the top of the page: The Best Care Anywhere, by Phillip Longman.

        LINK: http://www.washingtonmonthly.c…

        In the early graphs, he compares diabetes care in the VA to care by HMOs and major medical centers. Here’s the problem: HMOs and medical centers don’t manage diabetes patients. HMOs don’t manage anything. They pay doctors and other caregivers who file claims that they’ve managed diabetes patients. Yes, they claim to do disease management, but they don’t really.

        Also, major medical centers don’t manage diabetes patients. Doctors on their staffs do. They have clinics that may be staffed by salaried docs or members of the medical staff, but I don’t think the health systems manage diabetes patients.

        The relationships that VA health systems have with their patients are quite different from the relationships between private sector and non-VA public systems have with their patients. But that doesn’t mean that a private sector company couldn’t do a better job than the VA does.

        Indeed, the best and most effective managers of diabetes patients are the patients themselves. Interesting question: Do VA patients who’ve spent time following orders in the military do a better job of complying with doctors’ orders than private sector patients who haven’t been in the military?

        In short, I don’t believe in the credibility of the study. No, I haven’t seen the study and I’m not a quality expert even though I’ve written and edited a lot of articles about hospital quality, but knowing how these studies are put together and how political they are, I have little faith in them.

        The real question is, could the VA outsource diabetes treatment and care to an outside firm—not-for-profit or for-profit, it doesn’t matter—and get better results?

        Thousands of communities around the country have outsourced their hospitals and sold their hospitals to not-for-profit and investor-owned chains that know how to run them better than their politicians do. Indeed, almost every hospital in the country outsources important services to mostly investor-owned companies that specialize in everything from running hospices and hospitalist services to managing medical device maintenance and their information systems.

        The VA should do the same with its hospitals. Indeed, I suspect that it outsources a lot of things already.

      3. Here’s an interesting report on a VA hospital where quality problems shut down surgery for three years.

        10.    IG: Marion VA Hospital’s Quality Control Has Improved. The AP (10/19, Suhr) reports, “A southern Illinois Veterans Affairs hospital has made ‘substantial improvement’ in quality control since major surgeries were suspended more than three years ago in the wake of several patient deaths, a VA inspector general’s report has concluded.” The findings, however, which were “based on an unannounced, three-day inspection of the Marion VA” conducted in August, “critiqued the medical center’s procedures – not actual quality of care – and came with no recommendations, still leaving unclear when major surgeries could resume there.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (10/19, 238K) publishes a similar story, while WSIL-TV Carterville, IL (10/18, 10:03 p.m. CT) broadcast that in the IG report, the Marion VA received “high marks for patient care and safety, organization, and management.”

        LINK: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2…

        1. Simple Question – do you use the VA medical system?

          (I’m gonna go with no.)

          As an expert (aka blogger) on the subject, can you find any health care system in the US with ZERO problems, ZERO deaths by negligence, or ZERO Complaints?

          (also gonna go with no.)

          Lastly, is there a private health care system in the US, no, the World, that has expertise in mental health and substance abuse counseling, polytrauma, spinal cord injury, flash burns, Agent Orange, chemical weapon & depleted uranium dust poisoning ALL IN ONE SYSTEM like the VA?

          (definitely going with no.)

          So, if we did a survey of the people who use the VA health care system, and if the survey came back year after year in the highly positive numbers, would you think that the VA does a better job than the private industry? What if that included the doctors that work there?

          http://www.defense.gov/news/ne…

          http://www.medscape.com/viewar…

          http://www.aafp.org/online/en/…

          (I could go on for a while, but I’ve posted these links elsewhere on this site…)

          Lastly, can I ask you about this paragraph:

          “In short, I don’t believe in the credibility of the study. No, I haven’t seen the study and I’m not a quality expert even though I’ve written and edited a lot of articles about hospital quality, but knowing how these studies are put together and how political they are, I have little faith in them.”

          So, since you just don’t believe the article, and you don’t cite any evidence to support you expert opinion, it’s true? All you have to do is put your fingers in your ears and go “LALALALALA it’s not true and I win!”

          What kind of fucking “expert blogger” are you?

        2. Thank you so much for showing those of us who need, want, and use the VA on a regular basis the light.

          I have used both the private sector healthcare system and the evil socialist VA since coming home.

          Put your fucking reports away and try talking to real Vets right here on this site. I feel fairly certain we’ll ALL tell you we prefer the VA.

          I have yet to find a private sector mental health professional who understands exactly what I am going through, and what I’ve gone through. Finding a private sector mental health worker who understands agoraphobia and the underlying causes when dealing with a Vet is nearly impossible.

          Seriously DJ, the amount of bullshit you’re spewing is ridiculous and then you have the balls to call yourself an expert! Un-fucking-believable.

          1. And I met a group of five  “kids” who were too gaggled together not to be together.

            2 marines, 2 army infantry and a swabbie. 11 OIF/OEF combat tours between them. All wounded and recovered.

            All transported to Denver from the hinterland for psych evals and counseling.  All were …adjusting poorly.  All had insurance that covered the psych counseling they were getting at home, none were seeing any benefit.  

            If this is just the beginning of the wave, it’s going to be a shitstorm.

            1. ..more than 2 million men and women have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. Of that total, only slightly more than 200,000 have separated from duty.

              10% – think about this. 10% of the eligible veterans for VA care are overwhelming the system now. What happens when we shut down Iraq in 2011, and AFPAK in 2012?

              Actually, I already know – a shitstorm.

    2. Walter Reed Army Medical Center (yes, that Walter Reed that was in the news a few years back), is not run by the VA.  It’s run by the United States Army.  Interestingly, the whole Walter Reed crisis hit after the Army was forced to outsource facility support operations at Walter Reed to a private contractor (IAP)on the ground that it would reduce costs and increase efficiency.

      One scandal about wounded servicemembers living in fetid, squalid conditions later and certain questions about privatization were raised.  Apparently IAP reduced costs and increased efficiency by abandoning routine maintenance and reducing cleaning schedules.

  2. …for the factually-challenged posters on this site, Disabled American Veterans (DAV) is one of the three National Service Organizations devoted specifically to helping America’s veterans and their families. All of the services of the DAV such as claims assistance, transportation to VA hospitals and homeless shelters for vets are all free of charge.

    The National Commander, a disabled vet himself weighed in pretty strongly:

    “Unquestionably, the VA does much better at providing those kinds of veteran-specific services than anyone in the private sector,” Commander Tyson said. “Instead of clamoring to dismantle the VA medical system and expel this nation’s defenders, the wiser policy would be to strengthen this invaluable national resource.

    Veterans’ injuries and illnesses are the direct result of their service in this nation’s armed forces. Many simply cannot afford to pay for medical care. For them, the VA is their only health care safety net. Health care in the private, for-profit sector would cost the tax payers substantially more for VA health care, the DAV estimates.

    “Moreover, VA health care is clearly the best anywhere and has been so deemed by numerous private entities,” said Commander Tyson, a service-connected disabled veteran.

    The VA provides a wide range of specialized care tailored to meet the unique needs of veterans. Spinal cord injury medicine, blind rehabilitation, amputee programs, advanced rehabilitation, prosthetics, post-traumatic stress disorder treatment, mental health services and long-term care are at the very heart of the VA health care system.

    http://www.dav.org/news/NewsAr…

    Two weeks to go, and the lying con-man gets hit from another front….

      1. There seems to be some guarded optimism that a source of alternate funding will be found. We’ve offered free office space, and our housing and care facilities if needed.

          1. I remember once we clashed over veterans issues.  That sound you hear is of me eating crow…crunch, crunch, crunch.  (Not too bad with a little tabasco sauce…)

              You rock, sir.

  4. With no data, just his belief that  the private sector would be  better at operating a VA hospital.

    Is there data?

    Yes, loads.

    Does it support Buck’s contention?

    No.

    Does it indicate anything useful?

    It indicates that outsourcing for government cost savings can be done on things that are not unique to VA: food service, transportation, etc

    It costs the vets more, but it is cheaper for the gov’t.

    The data also indicates that for things unique to VA health care, outsourcing is more expensive for less care, and worse outcomes.

    Buck could get the data. And read it.

    H-man, wilson, No2, and almost anyone with half a brain and 20 minutes could get the data.  So why the wacky talking point bs:IF we can reduce the deficit and provide better quality of care for our veterans, I’m in favor….

    Sure, who wouldn’t be?   If budget fairies and unicorns could just make the deficit go away, and give us unlimited access to cheap oil and a free way to stabilize carbon emissions, I’m in favor of that.

    1. Thanks for condensing Buck’s ignorance on this subject into a nice paragraph.

      Combined with his offering an opinion as to homosexuality being a choice or a disease, also without a shred of support, and his belief that a woman who had the perp on tape admitting to rape was simply exhibiting “buyer’s remorse,” and his tipping off that gun smuggling character, this Ken Buck sounds like a total loose cannon.

      No wonder Sharron Angle considers him her equal. He’s Angle minus the bad hair.

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