The ongoing scandal at the Veterans Affairs Department has forced the idea of government-managed health care into the spotlight, with opponents pointing to the VA’s failures as an example of what could happen if the country were to adopt government run health care or a single payer insurance policy on a larger scale.
For years, liberals in support of single-payer have pointed to the VA as a model for what a larger system could look like. New York Times’ columnist Paul Krugman called the Veterans Affairs Department’s “success story one of the best-kept secrets in the American policy debate.” Krugman wrote in 2006, “The secret of its success is the fact that it's a universal, integrated system.”
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Now, issues of severe mismanagement have emerged with reports alleging that fudged numbers and long wait times have resulted in the deaths of at least 40 vets who did not receive timely treatment in one Phoenix VA hospital. Reports of suicides possibly linked to neglect and similarly long wait times and management issues are cropping up at other VA facilities across the country. Conservatives and opponents of government-managed care are blaming the large agency.
Larry Kudlow of the Kudlow Report was quick to pounce on the VA scandal as testament to what goes wrong when you adopt socialized medicine. “This VA scandal is a reminder that government-run single-payer health care does not work.” Kudlow said. “The long waits for treatment, with excessive delays resulting in as many as 40 deaths, are a tragically predictable outcome. This is the result of bureaucratic rationing, price controls, inefficiencies and the inevitable cover-ups.”
However, single payer advocates say what’s happening at the VA isn’t relevant to single payer at all, since the VA is completely government-run and in a single- payer system, the delivery of care would remain largely in the private sector’s hands.
In a single payer system—known as Medicare for all—the government would pay doctors and hospital bills. It would be funded through taxes.
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Advocates have long said adopting a single payer system is the best solution to curb the country’s swelling health care spending. The Affordable Care Act was intended to address that, but they say it doesn’t go far enough. They point to Canada and Taiwan that have controlled health care spending inflation. One study published in the journal Health Affairs shows that American doctors spend nearly four times as much money interacting with healthcare payers than doctors in Canada.