VA HOSPITALS FOR ALL OF US?

Veterans have always been a discomfort to the Kings. Soldiers are, after all, expected to be motivated by a spirit of sacrifice... not simply looking for reward like mercenary contractors. Veterans need things, but unlike repairing a damaged truck, money spent maintaining them does not increase their useful value to the King, that is, beyond the propaganda value of "honoring" them with medals and speeches. Kings love the dead. Words can be put into their mouths to rally the living, and their portraits hanged like unpaid bills only the blood of the King's enemies can pay. Kings erect grand monuments (close to the Castle, under the Flag) which they tout as honor to the fallen soldiers, but which actually glorify that for which those patriots are declared to have sacrificed themselves... that is, the reign of Kings.

It seems clear to me that separate hospitals for the veteran operated by the government comprise a form of "socialized medicine." Curiously, many of those calling most loudly for the state to provide care for veterans are the same ones objecting most to the idea of socialized medicine for the rest of the population. The situation offers two options: one would be to close the VA hospitals and provide Federal payment of insurance to guarantee the veteran, and everyone else, access to the AMA's private-sector protected-monopoly corporate medicine system, and the other would be to expand the VA hospitals to include everyone.

Such an expanded Federal hospital system would not replace the existing medical industry, but would operate in direct competition with it. The medical and insurance industries both seek to obtain the highest profits the traffic will bear for what they provide. Given a gung ho attitude about genuine service like our present military medical corps, the FedMed Corps could strive to obtain the most actual medical care at the lowest cost to the taxpayer. To be competitive, however, it must be set free of AMA licensing or union requirements, must be permitted to provide any medical procedure or prescription at the lowest cost, in accordance with its own standards, and to pay wages equivalent to military salaries. It has no investment managers, no stockholders, and pays no dividends or bonuses. The AMA’s private industry can continue exactly as they are, and people who can afford it may buy into the insurance industry to pay for their services. No government program, however, should pay a private hospital for services available at a FedMed hospital. That way it is not a matter of them choosing only one way or only the other, but instead, giving you the citizen your choice of the best service socialism can provide for you and the best service capitalism can offer you, if you can afford it.

The other alternative, the one that seems to be blown around The Castle these days, by the princes of both houses, is to socialize only the payment of insurance premiums, so as to give the less-affluent more affordable access to the AMA's hospitals at their own profitable rates. Nobody is talking about actually providing medical care to anyone. No, they are talking only about providing medical insurance, and getting the IRS to collect their profitable premiums from all of us. In the meanwhile, veterans, and many others, go without...