David Bernstein brings up a good point:

If private companies had mismanaged outpatient care for veterans the way the V.A. system has, there would be strong calls from all the usual quarters for a government takeover, and proclamations of how we can’t trust “greedy” for-profit companies to take care of veterans. Funny how this thought process doesn’t seem to work in reverse, except among “free market ideologues,” who have been criticizing the V.A. for years.

It is rather humorous to watch the same folks who would see us all put on a government-managed health care system rail against the inadequacies of the VA system.  As though those very same inadequacies wouldn’t be present, and even exacerbated, in a government health system we were all enrolled in.

But putting the question of national health care aside, should the VA be privatized?  Personally, I see the VA as a legitimate government service provided to our vets who risked life and limb for this country.  We have to keep it, because we owe it to the troops.  But could it be run more efficiently and adequately were it more of a government insurance policy for vets, covering all their health needs, as opposed to a monolithic bureaucracy with its own facilities and such?

I think it probably would be, and I think these recent troubles at the VA are just the excuse conservative leaders need to push for such reform.