The drive to create American plutocracy knows no limits, and no shame. In a never ceasing effort to “privatize” all aspects of American government, a smear campaign has been launched against the Veterans Administration. The supposed story is the incompetence of the VA medical system. The goal is to shut down the VA’s hospitals and direct traffic to private hospitals. The “theory” is that private American hospitals – part of the world’s 37th best health care system – will provide superior health care for America’s veterans. This is another example of the “market based” theory – the false idea that private is always superior to government.
The “Big Lie is well documented for you in a July/August, 2018, article in “Washington Monthly” magazine, “Unhealthy Skepticism,” by Suzanne Gordon and Jasper Craven. They start by relating the nonprofit RAND organization’s study showing “gross inadequacies of New York State’s health care system to effectively treat veteran patients. A month later, RAND found that the quality of VA care was generally better than private care. These were just the latest of scores of studies that have come to the same conclusion foe nearly two decades now.”
Gordon and Jasper wonder how can this be? 20 years of reports saying VA care better than private, ignored. Why? “The answer is that studies like the RAND report are virtually ignored by the press” So – why is that? A good part of that is conservatives pushing “free market” solutions…for nearly everything….. privatizing Social Security……privatizing public schools…..privatizing prisons…..privatizing government itself. And, of course, the gold standard of “free market solutions” is….America’s #37 best private health care system itself!
The real issue, for some, is that the VA is a successful example of socialized medicine. If the “usual suspects” can discredit and demonize the VA, then they can use that to discredit and defeat something like “Medicare for All,” the “radical” [only for America] idea that the world’s richest nation ought to provide decent medical care for all its people. Some might say where does that come from? Well, perhaps, if one took the Constitution seriously, its Preamble says: “promote the general Welfare.” If we can assume that a progressive middle class-oriented government might consider a healthy population as “Promoting the general Welfare,” then not so “radical.”
Unravelling the sensational Phoenix VA story, it is established that not 40, but 6 veterans died waiting for care – and it wasn’t clear delays caused the deaths. They could have died while waiting, not BECAUSE of waiting. Gordon and Jasper point out people die all the time in the private sector waiting to see a doctor. So – part of the problem is the failure of media to compare the VA, accurately, with the #37 best private health care system. For comparison, American “private hospitals and physicians kill more than 250,000 patients a year [and seriously injure 1.5 million] due to preventable medical errors.” This includes some of America’s top rated hospitals. When is the last…or perhaps the first time…you heard those statistics? And, as the authors state: “no one suggests that these hospitals should be socialized.”
Perhaps the veterans would be referred to a private hospital under these circumstances: 84 million Americans live in a federally designated primary care shortage area; or perhaps try to find a psychiatrist or social worker in the 77% of U.S. counties that have acute shortages; or perhaps in the 55% of U.S. counties, all rural, that have no mental health care professionals at all? So, or veterans would be driving just how far??? “Without the VA, these numbers would be even worse.”
The authors point out the VA scandal occurred because the VA reported problems – and got negative press. The other side of that coin is: “the other healthcare providers were routinely covering them up.” Most private companies don’t even attempt to collect such data, much less make it public. So – we have a different set of rules. “There are no inspectors general or standing congressional committees for private health care..” But there is advertising! Private hospitals “typically” invest $1 million in advertising; one prominent private hospital spent $l19 million in 2015 advertising. And this: “When “Time” magazine named neuroscientist Ann McKee to it 2018 list of the world’s 100 most influential people, it DIDN’T even mention her position as chief neuropathologist for the Boston VA.”
And, of course, “Things have only gotten worse under Trump.” The current VA national press secretary [surprise!] worked for a Republican congressman who pushed “drastic” privatization measures, and [surprise!] the press secretary is a “longtime VA skeptic” [something like the EPA Secretary is a climate denier, the Education Secretary a public school privatizer, etc] And the current interim Secretary, “has highlighted negative news stories reported on “Fox & Friends,” urging Congress to outsource more VA care>” YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!!! But then, its a repeat of the 1980-2009 playbook: appoint enemies of a department, let them sabotage it – and call that “government.” Imagine an NFL defensive coordinator who was a former 3rd string QB who hates the defense!
And then, as the authors mention, all the supposed VA “failures” come “as with other federal agencies, red tape and dysfunction is brought to you by Congress. Considering that for the last 40 years, Republicans have controlled Congress much of the time; and considering the post-1980 anti-government ideology of the Republicans, are you surprised that Congress would deliberately sabotage government? It is Congress that forced the VA to “adjudicate impossibly difficult eligibility standards,” forcing the VA to deny benefits. Also “its members of Congress, not VA employees, who decide how much money to allocate to the VA, as well as where and how to spend it.” [saddling the VA with billions in expenses for operating obsolete facilities]. Then also, “VA hospitals and clinics have become strapped for cash because Congress..passed the CHOICE Act, which required that the VA divert more resources to paying private doctors for the treatment of VA patients.” Does the word “sabotage” begin to wander through your mind here?
Informed readers will remember the last 40 years of Republican attempts to divert public taxpayer money [unconstitutionally] to private schools. This has been a double win for them. They subsidize private schools [again with little accountability], and by taking this money from the public schools, they make the public schools’ job more difficult – thus aiding that Big Lie – “failing public schools.” Same playbook, just a different opportunity. Just like American industry has used “the tobacco defense” playbook to justify all sorts of misconduct – the most recent and deadly – climate change denial.
And, given the current corrupt American political scene, would this issue be complete without “Dark Money?” Readers in the know remember Jane Mayer’s book, “Dark Money” [how billionaires subvert American democracy] So… Surprise!!! – guess what? – the Dark Money in the VA smear effort can be traced back to…..the Koch brothers! It turns out t5hat a prominent corporate-sponsored “veterans group” is “Concern Veterans for America,” which regularly attacks the VA. “Yet, unlike the VFW, the American Legion…CVA is not accountable to dues-paying, rank-and-file veterans. Rather, it is largely financed by the Koch brothers and their network of wealthy funders and led by a narrow band of media-savvy professional advocates.” One might ask why groups of billionaires are instead of doing every patriotic thing possible to aid the people who protected their fortunes, are doing everything they can to undermine the medical care the veterans earned with their blood on the battlefield. Strange world. There is another “Astroturf organization,” the “Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America,” harshly critical of the VA. The IAVA website claims 425,000 members, “but membership merely entails a mouse click; no dues required, nor proof of veteran status….funding..comes from “partners” who include major corporations that stand to gain directly from VA privatization.” One of these contributed $500,000 “not long before becoming a major beneficiary of legislation that forces the VA to outsource more care..” One might think that an administration that came to power by saying it would “drain the swamp in Washington” would be leaving no stone unturned to ferret what playground logic says sounds very much like corruption.
So, gentle readers, where is the real scandal involving the VA? Is it what what a relentless smear campaign says it is? Or, is it what the RAND nonprofit research organization determined, based on real facts, not “alternative facts” – that the VA was providing superior care over private care? And then, you might be asking why we’re having all these “discussions?” All of which supposedly concern government groups who are “incompetent?” Who stands to benefit from undermining civil servants, police, public school teachers, government in general.
The real “privatization scandal isn’t limited to the VA. The July/August “Washington Monthly” has another article by Paul Glastris dealing with this: “…focus on where some of the most egregious waste and fraud is really happening: private contracting…the biggest profligacy in government contracting is in ‘service contracting’: that is outsourcing to private consulting firms quotidian work..that could be, and often was, done in-house. “Walk into any federal agency office and you’ll see service contractors and civil servants sitting side by side, doing the same work…The only difference is that service contractors cost the government [that’s you, taxpayer], on average, nearly twice as much…with typically no improvement in outcomes..the costly rise of outsourcing government work that began under Ronald Reagan.”
One of the definitive studies of “privatization” is by Naomi Klein, “The Shock Doctrine.” It documents “privatization” around the world, with almost 100% negative results for democracy and citizen control of their own government. From pages 363-400, Klein tells how the Bush II regime’s “central tenet” was not to govern but to subcontract work to “privatization.” Credit is due also to the Clinton and Bush I administrations which enlarged the Reagan effort. In what “can only be described as a privatized police state.” Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush II applied “market logic” to the U.S. military. For corroboration, find fact-based audits of the Iraq war and occupation. Beginning on page 376, Klein details the Bush II “corporate new deal.” Also, the ‘war on terror’ was largely a privatized concept from the begging. The result? An explosion of the U.S. national debt. Mr. & Mrs. Lower 95% – you’ve been paying, are paying, will be paying, and so will your children – trillions for this “privatization.”
We’ve come far from “the Greatest Generation,” the generation of people who believed in government, believed that together they could improve America. Now, for the last 40 years, you’ve been fed a steady diet of “government is the problem” lies. People, purporting to be patriots, have been instead following the totalitarian handbook of the “Big Lie” and steadily authoritarian regimes. Just like infamous 20th century dictatorships, their Big Lies are, often daily, repeated in a massive, coordinated “echo chamber” of TV, talk radio, the internet. Just like in the 20th century, false scapegoats are “identified” for you to hate, to distract your attention from the real perps – them. Here we are in 2018, in the climate of “alternative facts.” Bit by bit, we slide down toward Orwoll’s scenario – governing the world’s most powerful “democracy” on the basis of grossly false lies. I’m glad Mom and Dad aren’t here to see this.
With Justice For All 