Another must read Krugman column today

[Hamlette]

behind the glass curtain here: http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/04/opinion/04krugman.html?hp

He's been talking about VA medical care and how it improved drastically under Clinton.

"The result is a system that achieves higher customer satisfaction than the private sector, higher quality of care by a number of measures and lower mortality rates — at much lower cost per patient. Not surprisingly, hundreds of thousands of veterans have switched from private physicians to the V.A. The commander of the American Legion has proposed letting elderly vets spend their Medicare benefits at V.A. facilities, which would lead to better medical care and large government savings.

Instead, the Bush administration has restricted access to the V.A. system, limiting it to poor vets or those with service-related injuries. And as for allowing elderly vets to get better, cheaper health care: “Conservatives,” writes Time, “fear such an arrangement would be a Trojan horse, setting up an even larger national health-care program and taking more business from the private sector.” Think about that: they won’t let vets on Medicare buy into the V.A. system, not because they believe this policy initiative would fail, but because they’re afraid it would succeed.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration is pursuing a failed idea from the 1990’s: channeling Medicare recipients into private H.M.O.’s. . . . In 2003, . . . the Bush administration pushed through the Medicare Advantage program, which offers heavy subsidies to H.M.O.’s. According to the independent Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, Medicare Advantage plans cost the government 11 percent more per person than traditional Medicare. Oh, and mortality rates in these plans are 40 percent higher than those of elderly veterans covered by the V.A. But thanks to the subsidy, membership in Medicare Advantage plans is surging.

On one side, then, the administration and its allies in Congress oppose expanding the best health care system in America, even though that expansion would save taxpayer dollars, because they’re afraid that allowing a successful government program to expand would undermine their antigovernment crusade and displease powerful business lobbies. On the other side, ideology and fealty to interest groups make them willing to waste billions subsidizing private H.M.O.’s. Remember that contrast the next time you hear some conservative going on about excessive spending on entitlements, and declaring that we need to cut back on Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

[spindrifter]

1. And BushCo cut the budget for

traumatic brain injury, the "signature injury" of the Iraq war. This is the most shameful indication of their policies, those who beat the drum about supporting our troops. I want to rub their faces in that one every day.

[riderinthestorm]

2. PTSD treament budget has remained static

if I can recall as well, which really means a cut since those cases are beginning to swamp the system already and we don't even have "everyone" home yet who is suffering.

[hedgehog]

3. But that's the beauty of Bush's plan:

By sending the troops back for a third and fourth deployment, he's going to get them all killed eventually. No survivors; no PTSD! It's the circle of Death!

[applegrove]

5. Who here thinks the * WH is terrified of the VA as an example of

working governance (national health care). They gutten FEMA.

[hedgehog]

6. Agreed, absolutely.

Ever since Reagan, Republicans have worked to prove that government doesn't work by making certain that government doesn't work.

[applegrove]

9. Sometimes you just go ....

[Hamlette]

4. I worked in a Vet Hospital for years. . .

I'm a lawyer and visited twice weekly to see patients in the psych ward. It was a pretty dismal place but I thought the treatment was fine. It was more the infrastructure that needed work.

Under Clinton I noticed big remodeling jobs at the VA hospital.

When my dad was ill a couple of years ago, we investigated rest homes as we knew a day would come when my mom could not care for him. The number one choice of everyone we talked to was...VA. We were initially surprised but upon investigation we learned the VA really is a quality place. There was a long waiting list. It ended up we were able to care for him at home...with a lot of help from hospice and family.

[Ksec]

7. Not much different than what they want to do with SS

Privitise it and destroy it.

[peaches2003]

8. True, but then why

does every military audience listening to *, including the American Legion who are all ex-military and can say whatever they want, have an organism trying to be the one to shake hands with the Bushmonster and to be the one applauding the longest and loudest.

Seriously, I would like an explanation that makes sense. People seem so willing to back Bush in direct opposition to their own interests.

[hedgehog]

10. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think he's spoken to the VFW

since so many delegates sat in the audience with bullshit protectors over their ears the last time. You have to be a vet to join the VFW. All you have to be to join the American Legion is a right wing militarist.

[peaches2003]

12. I will stand corrected

on the VFW/American Legion. However, I don't think there is any disagreement that the military per se falls all over itself to salute the little bastard against all common sense when you see what he has done to the military as an institution and to soldiers as individuals. The only reason I can think of is that, human nature being human nature, they have to believe that their sacrifice is warranted (or why would a rational human being put their lives in jeopardy) and Bush is a master at reading the words that are written for him that make every soldier a hero. That they will defend his being AWOL and a deserter is another question all together.

[riderinthestorm]

11. I've never understood the military

and why they will choose loyalty and/or affection for one prez over another. Clinton actually took care of the military, thought about it's direction, it's size, it's needs, it's scope. But all any of them focus on was his attempts to get out of Vietnam. And they vilify him mercilessly it seems.

Then you have Dick Cheney (5 deferments), Bush (awol), and the rest of the military/industrial hacks who are deliberately, definitively trashing the military and all you hear is that he is beloved by the GIs out there.

There has got to be some percentage of the military population that are beginning to recognize this and acknowledge it isn't there?

I remember reading a piece of trivia that said that when Clinton is/was in front of our military that the soldiers would lower their salute after he passed - a small measure of disrespect. But that with Bush, the soldiers hold their salute until he is out of sight as a measure of their great respect. That tidbit always chaps my ass when I think about it in light of what BFEE and all the rest of these war criminals are doing to these poor sods.....

[lanlady]

13. I agree with you

Here in VA, the military bitch and moan about how bad things have gotten for them, then they go and vote for George Allen and George Bush. Jeezus get a clue, guys...

[hedgehog]

14. I had the impression that those in the top ranks are frantically

trying to figure out how to stop Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld without transgressing their loyalty to civilian control. The mad trio took a functional military machine and trashed it.

[riderinthestorm]

15. I'd be interested in any links you could drag up on that

I understand if it's just something you read from a while back that struck some funny bone but it would be really heartening if there were any indications, even a single clue that there are some people at the top of the Pentagon who deeply understand what's being done to them.

I understand that there is a culture of loyalty to civilian control, and I appreciate their respect for maintaining appropriate boundaries but I am really flummoxed at how bamboozled the military seems to be about who is really doing them good or harm.

They are focused on such wierd shit to "prove" their loyalty or hatred for one prez over the other - it's just not rational.

[hedgehog]

16. I don't have a specific link.

My statement was based on a number of articles, esp. those by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker. A lot of officers are willing to talk off the record and they seem to be sending out frantic SOSes that someone has to stop Bush before he gets us into a war with Iran. I'm also thinking of the inordinate number of senior staff taking early retirements rather than continuing to work under this bunch.

[Hamlette]

17. hedgehog is right

read Fiasco or Assassin's Gate or Cobra II. Hard to know how many generals are/were against Rummy/Bush/Cheney but they are there.

Franks is/was not one of them. He is creepy and went along with Rummy even though he knew it wouldn't work. I think he's evil.

[riderinthestorm]

18. Oh, I didn't doubt hedgehog at all.

I just wanted some reading material to try to counter my fear that the military are such sheep that they can't see BFEE is literally and figuratively killing them.

I just find it incredible that the average GI hasn't figured it out yet though (besides some generals) - they are the ones experiencing the cuts, the diminished health care, the terrible positions they are being asked to take in Iraq... why persist in their asinine love of Bush and their misguided hatred of Clinton? Bizarre.

Thanks for the recs!

[Hamlette]

19. the military has always been right wing

hard to know if republicans are attracted to the military or the military turns them into republicans. I think for my dad, the military turn an apolitical "kid" (he signed up when he was 18, right after Pearl Harbor) into a republican. My father's reasons were that he believed the US needs a strong military as a deterrence. (I agree, but its a matter of degree, I don't think we need as many nukes as we have but I do believe in a strong military.)

Now couple that with what John Dean describes in his book Conservatives without Conscience. He says there is a personality type that is authoritarian in nature. Those people either want to be bossed around or boss other people around. (Incidently, 100% of that personality type is a republican, but not necessarily vica versa).

People like my dad get out. He was against the war in Vietnam but couldn't say anything about it (not that what he would have said would have made a difference, he wasn't in a position to make those kinds of decisions). Reagan pushed him all the way over the edge when he started talking about limited nuclear war. My dad was so pissed he left the military and the GOP and nevery voted for a republican again.

So, my theory is, people who are in the military are authoritarian personalities hence they are GOP and the smart ones are the minority or get out. Which is one reason I believe in the draft. At least then you'd have soilders who were not gung ho military/war mongers and would help keep the military honest.

As to like Bush better than Clinton? Clinton didn't send them into any wars. Some guys (most guys?) in the military like wars. And why not? That is what they live/train for. (Which of course is why the Sec. of Defense has to be civilian, to hopefully temper the military.