THE VA IS THE LARGEST HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN THE USA
J. F. L. MD
What would the chances for congressional approval of President Clinton's health care plan be if Americans peered into the future and discovered that:
Over half of the patients (55%) in the plan with routine medical problems wait three hours or longer, sometimes all day, to be seen for a few minutes by an over-worked doctor struggling with increasing numbers of patients and piles of government forms, regulations, controls and policy directives...
The VA is the largest health care system, public or private, in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world. It operates 171 medical centers with 80,000 beds; 362 out-patient and community clinics with 23 million patient visits annually...
VA is the quintessential government bureaucracy: administratively officious and laden with red tape and regulatory minutiae destructive to both quality patient care and staff conduct. Three volumes of the U.S. Code (title 38) and a full volume of the Code of Federal Regulations, plus scores of volumes of federal personnel and other policy restrictions, govern each VA employee's every move. Thousands of pages provide detailed descriptions of medical conditions, degrees of disability and potential eligibility for pension benefits and free health care.
