The same thing happens here in the US during heat waves in large cities – the elderly who live isolated in older homes with no air-conditioning succumb to the heat. Our healthcare system, no matter its flaws, is not responsible for these deaths.

Re the problems at Walter Reed: I caught about 15 minutes of the Congressional hearing on the problems there. The biggest factor is that in 2000, before the Iraq war, the Army made the decisioin to privatize the workforce there, approx. 400 persons. Within 2 years, half of those persons had left the medical center, seriously compromising the care that could be delivered with the large increase in the number of soldiers with war injuries.

The problems at Walter Reed are, unfortunately, due to the collision of two events – the war and the privatization of the workforce – occuring at the same time. I am not so certain that the problems are due mainly to incompetance or lack of services.

The military medical system, inasmuch as it is successful in treating battle injuries is the vicarious beneficiary of changes in technology and practices acquired in civilian trauma management. The survival rate is the result of improvements in vehicle and body armor, in field management using civilian-acquired techniques and in the practice of rapid evacuation of wounded to high-level trauma hospital facilities. Those are civilian-developed practices. The sad fact is that the military operates no significant trauma centers except its in-theater hospital at Balad. All of the military trauma experts get their specialty training in trauma at places like Ben Taub, Washington Hospital Center and other major trauma centers in U.S. cities.

Management of traumatic battle injuries is of necessity a military practice; they are usually the only functioning organization in a battle theater. But that skill set is obtained in civilian training centers. And it isn’t just true in the US; the same applies to other countries with military medivac and treatment systems, particularly Israel.

I don’t see where for-profit medical systems have any special claim here. Most care of this type is provided by neither government hospitals nor by for-profit hospitals but by non-profit private hospitals owned by trusts and foundations or universities.

And the post office, or more properly the United States Postal Service, is of course a semi-independent government corporation charged with among other things, meeting its own expenses. That is why first-class rates go up not by decision of Congress but by the Postal Rate Commission, and that is why your mailbox is and will remain a landing spot for so much unsolicited commercial advertising and credit card offers.

The observation that the V.A. (civilian, government) and the military (civilian, military and non-military government) medical systems have similar problems in staff behavior and motivation while true is neither here nor there. And it is hardly an argument for turning those systems over to private contractors.

There are problems everywhere. So glib denunciations without offering solutions to problems are the easiest, and most lame statements to make.

The military medical system is outstanding at treating battle injuries, and I would argue it is far superior to any other system on earth in doing that. Yet it’s run by the same government that runs the post office. But Kevin never highlights that fact. That should tell us a lot.

Why did you assume the poster was confusing the military medical system with the V.A? I have worked in both, and there is truth to his observation.

The Post Office delivers my mail on time. In fact, I get my meds from the VA delivered to me via the Post Office, always on time and within a day or two of my refilling my scripts online on my computer. Man, it sucks not having to drive 45 minutes and wait on line at CVS and pay monopoly rents for a drug they often don’t have in stock. But hey, four legs goooood, two legs baaaaaad. Free market goooood, government baaaaad. The problems at Walter Reed were clearly the result of failure to outsource *all* its services to Halliburton in a timely manner. By only partially outsourcing, Walter Reed forced Halliburton to fail because we all know the free market can’t work its magic while there’s even an iota of government interference.

We all know, as a result of the divine revelation granted to Saint Ayn, that the government can’t do anything right, so let’s just stick with the failed, corrupt and barbaric system we have because there is no possible better alternative. If there was, the market would have invented it by now (pg 41, verse 3, Libertarian Little not-so Red Book). All that stuff you hear about Europe is propaganda from communists and doctor-bashers and some fat guy in a baseball cap who obviously can’t follow his doctor’s orders. And I do mean orders.