{"id":22837,"date":"2014-05-22T22:08:43","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T02:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=22837"},"modified":"2014-05-22T22:08:45","modified_gmt":"2014-05-23T02:08:45","slug":"these-numbers-just-dont-add-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=22837","title":{"rendered":"These Numbers Just Don’t Add Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, Investor’s Business Daily<\/a> posted an article about the Veterans Administration scandal that is the Obama Administration’s scandal de jour. The treatment of our veterans by the Veterans Administration hospitals is a disgrace and is inexcusable. However, some of the excuses given by the Obama Administration and its supporters simply do not hold water.<\/p>\n

The Washington Examiner<\/a> today quoted Nancy Pelosi on the scandal:<\/p>\n

Pelosi took a shot at Bush while saying that the scandal is a high priority for Obama. “He sees the ramifications of some seeds that were sown a long time ago, when you have two wars over a long period of time and many, many more, millions more veterans,” she told reporters during her Thursday press briefing. “And so, I know that he is upset about it.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The actual numbers tell a different story–it really isn’t George Bush’s fault.<\/p>\n

Investor’s Business Daily has the chart:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The number of veterans is declining and the spending is going up, so what is going on?<\/p>\n

The article at Investor’s Business Daily explains some of where the numbers on the chart come from:<\/p>\n

Some will argue that the increase in health spending was the direct result of all those wounded warriors coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But these vets aren’t driving VA costs higher.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Congressional Budget Office report<\/a> found that they cost $4,800, on average, in 2010 compared with $8,800 for other veterans who used the system.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It also found that while these Iraq and Afghan vets account for 7% of those treated, they were responsible for only 4% of its health costs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

…What’s more, the main reason for the growth in enrollment in the VA’s health service wasn’t those two wars; it was the Veterans’ Health Care Eligibility Reform Act of 1996, signed by President Clinton, “which required the VA to provide care to certain types of veterans, such as those with service-connected disabilities, and permitted VA to offer services to additional veterans if funding permitted,” the CBO report noted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

…That points to the fact that, unlike Medicare, Medicaid and, now, ObamaCare \u2014 which rely on private doctors and hospitals to provide subsidized or free care \u2014 the VA is a completely government-run system, with its own hospitals, clinics and providers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the department notes, it operates the nation’s largest integrated health care system, with more than 1,700 hospitals, clinics and other facilities.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For years, proponents of a single-payer health care system lauded the VA for this very reason, saying it was a model for the rest of the country.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Yes, this is ‘socialized medicine,'” wrote liberal economist Paul Krugman<\/a> in 2011, “But it works \u2014 and suggests what it will take to solve the troubles of U.S. health care more broadly.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

At best, the VA hospital scandal is the proof that socialized medicine is exactly the wrong prescription to solve the problems in the healthcare system in America. It’s not George Bush’s fault–the failure in the VA is due to the fact that socialized medicine does not work.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, Investor’s Business Daily posted an article about the Veterans Administration scandal that is the Obama Administration’s scandal de jour. The treatment of our veterans by the Veterans Administration hospitals is a disgrace and is inexcusable. However, some of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4982,294,7575,7574],"class_list":["post-22837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-george-bush","tag-nancy-pelosi","tag-socialized-medicine","tag-veterans-administration-scandal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22837"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22840,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22837\/revisions\/22840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}