DAR
Oh yes, you mentioned the $600 hammer story again.

Perhaps you missed my references which directly address the VA’s superior efficiency. Again (as above):

***
“The fact is that the government-run U.S. Veterans healthcare system is now considered signficantly more efficient than private-sector healthcare according to:

The New England Journal of Medicine (”Effect of the Transformation of the Veterans Affaris Health Care System on the Quality of Care, May 29, 2003)

The Annals of Internal Medicine (”Diabetes Care Quality in the Veterans Affairs Health Care System and Commercial Managed Care: The TRIAD Study,” August 17, 2004)

U.S. News & World Report (America’s Best Hospitals, Military Might, July 18 2005);

the American Journal of Managed Care (”The Veterans Health Administration: Quality, Value, Accountability, and Information as Transforming Strategies for Patient-Centered Care,” 2004,10; part2);

Washington Monthly (”The Best Care Anywhere,” January/February 2005)

and The Washington Post (”Revamped Veterans Health CAre Now a Model,” August 22, 2005).

BLK: “I go by my brother’s experience in the VA- have you used the VA?>>

DAR
No, but I tuned their piano last month. I gave them a discount.

BLK: If not, shut up, as you are using anecdotal (read: useless in the real world) experience.>>

DAR
I am sorry you are confused. When you lean upon your brother’s experience, it is *you* who is using “anecdotal” (read: useless in the real world) evidence.

I refer to the scientific studies above. This trumps you asking “your brother.”

D.

DAR
See book reference above.

BLK: “government run anything is by its very definition wasteful.”

DAR
By definition? So people should just assume what you think is true because you assert it is “by definition” true.

That’s not how it works.

D.

DAR
This fellow thinks that’s good and wrote a book about it.

***
Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Health Care is Better Than Yours (Paperback)

Editorial Reviews

“The long-maligned Veterans Health Administration has become the highest-quality healthcare provider in the United States. This encouraging change not only has benefited veterans but also provides a blueprint for salvaging America’s own deeply troubled healthcare system. “Best Care Anywhere” shows how a government bureaucracy, working with little notice, is setting the standard for best practices and cost reduction while the private sector is lagging in both areas. Author Phillip Longman challenges conventional wisdom by explaining exactly how market forces work to lower quality and raise prices in the healthcare sector, and how U.S. medical practices have a weak basis in science. The book, expanded from a widely praised article in the “Washington Monthly,” mixes hard facts with author Philip Longmans’ compelling human story of the loss of his wife to cancer. Part manifesto, part moving memoir, “Best Care Anywhere” offers new hope for addressing a major problem of contemporary society that affects all of us.

Also, REVIEW:

“Philip Longman makes the case that current U.S. healthcare is a fragmented, market driven system that lags behind much of the industrialized world in both quality and access of healthcare. According to Longman, the problem with our healthcare system is that it isn’t really a system and that it doesn’t reward the one thing that it should – health improvement. In fact, he offers proof that in the U.S. doctors and hospitals are rewarded for providing treatment, but not necessarily providing health to their patients. To illustrate this, he offers examples from two of the nation’s premier hospitals – Beth Israel and Duke Medical Center. Both initiated programs that were so successful at improving health that they became unprofitable and were ultimately terminated.

This book is filled with understandable, but often shocking statistics. For example, every year in the United States 98,000 people die due to medical errors while in the hospital, another 90,000 die due to infections that they get while in the hospital, and 126,000 needlessly die because their doctor failed to use evidence-based protocols for just four of the most common conditions.

The solution? Longman speaks effusively about the VA healthcare system. And rightfully so. It is the only fully functioning, evidence-based healthcare system in the country. The book explores the history of the VA and speaks honestly about some of the warts that mar the VA’s reputation. But the truth of the matter is that the VA has turned all of that around and is currently at the front of the healthcare revolution.

Longman’s book contains sections on safety, quality improvement, the concept of lifetime healthcare, and the Kizer Revolution at the VA, which dramatically improved quality and altered forever the course of veterans’ healthcare.
***

You can buy a copy of this book on Amazon, used, for five bucks. It came out in 2007.

Amazon link