A two-minute hate for "privatization" and "Kochs"

This Politico coverage of the sacking of VA secretary Shulkin is bizarre.  I must be so far in the conservative echo chamber that I'd lost sight of how even moderately leftist people view the dangers of allowing vets to go outside the nonfunctional VA system to get actual care from actual private doctors.  To Politico, apparently, this is "privatizing VA benefits while leaving taxpayers with the bill."  If the point is to provide vets with benefits, I'm at a loss to see what's wrong with using taxpayer funds to pay private doctors.  Isn't that what Medicare does, or theoretically does?  Usually we see complaints about the juxtaposition of "privatizing" with "taxpayer" funds when it's a pseudo-investment, as in infrastructure, and the upside is on the private side while the downside is left to the taxpayers.

4 comments:

Christopher B said...

Don't try to be logical. Trump did it so it's bad. QED

Like the FB meme I saw yesterday - If Trump opposed oxygen, Democrats (and #NeverTrumpers) would suffocate themselves.

If only!

E Hines said...

Maybe I'll finally get my wish.

The VA should be utterly abolished and its budget and putative future year budgets converted to vouchers to the vets with which they can get the care of their choice from the doctors/clinics/hospitals of their choice. It is a Federally funded benefit--whether washed through a dysfunctionally failed VA or via vouchers--but it's one of the few that benefits actually earned.

Veteranos Administratio delende est.

Eric Hines

MikeD said...

I wish I could put it any better, but Mr. Hines knocked this one out of the park.

E Hines said...

one of the few that benefits actually earned should have been one of the few benefits actually earned.

Maybe bounced off the top of the wall....

Eric Hines