Jan 162008
Read the whole post over at Bitch Ph.D., but it’s Mr. B for the win:
Well, sir, let me tell you. I was in the military for twelve years, and the government provided *my* health care. And it was first rate.
mythago
4 Responses to “Rove’s good twin”
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While it’s impossible to know for certain, we can at least postulate that a) Mr. B never was wounded in combat, and b) Mr. B is in good general health, or at least was while he was in the military.
If you rarely if ever use your health insurance you’re not terribly concerned about the quality. On the other hand, I’ve talked to very few old, sick veterans who have much good to say about the V.A. And then there’s Walter Reed. Is that going to be our model for a hospital under socialized medicine?
You’re conflating two things: the health care active military members get while they’re *in* the military (now TRICARE, used to be CHAMPUS), and the VA. TRICARE, unless the Army misled me badly, provides insurance rather than actual medical care as the VA does.
Your comments about the VA match pretty much what I’ve heard from people with Kaiser health insurance: as long as you’re young and healthy it’s fantastic, but God help you if you get sick or need a lot of care.
What my clients who are veterans using VA tell me is that care varies depending on which VA you live near. Some of them are very, very good; others exactly the opposite, just as you find with profit-based medicine.
I stand corrected. I should have written “if you rarely ever use your health CARE you’re not terribly concerned about the quality.”
Another thing to remember about military health care is that to the extent it works it works because the military is a sort of dictatorship-within-a-democracy. You WILL be in shape when you join (if not, they’ll either whip you into shape or discharge you in basic). You WILL stay in shape (moreso for people with actual combat jobs, less so with rear echelon mofos). You WILL go for your yearly physical. You WILL see the doctor they assign you.
That’s fine for those who sign on of their own free will. Personally, I’d rather have more independence in my life than I would if I’d joined the military. Don’t want to live like that under some universal health care system. Obviously not everybody feels that way, since John Edwards proposed mandatory yearly checkups and none of his supporters seemed to blink over it. I’d be curious to know what his punishment for non-compliance would be.
No need to stand corrected, Chief. As I said, “It’s great as long as you don’t get really sick or hurt” is exactly what I hear about some private insurers. (Top marks go to Aetna, which required one of Samwise’s then-coworkers to have her doctor sign a form affirming that chemotherapy she received for breast cancer was not an “elective procedure.”)
The military does have physical requirements, which get laxer with age, but I don’t think that mandatory fitness is the reason that the military uses TRICARE instead of covering premiums through another insurer, as many private-sector companies do.