5 STEPS TO FIX THE VA CLINICS

1. Acknowledge that the health care system for veterans is broken. The problem will not be fixed by throwing more money away and increasing the number of doctors. Only when there is a different mindset, will the problem be solved.

2. Privatize the system as much as possible to increase choices for veterans and also increase  the efficiency of healthcare delivery to  provide overall better healthcare for the veterans.  The current problems are due to a massive bureaucracy and to bureaucrats who have their own self-interests rather than doing their job and providing the best possible health care for the veterans.

3. For those veterans who currently are using the VA system,  allow them to use vouchers that pay at the current Medicare rates so that they can seek their medical care from most of the physicians in United States and at all  hospitals. In this way, deserving veterans would not have to wait such an extraordinary time to be seen by a physician and their quality of life and their survival will not be placed in jeopardy.  

4. Guidelines for those currently serving in the military should be as follows:

      For those who retire after 4 years of service or for those who have been wounded or discharged honorably; they would have Medicare as their primary insurance for the remainder of their life.

      For those who retire after 8 years of service; they would have Medicare as their primary insurance for life and TRICARE as their secondary until the age of 65.  

      For those who retire after 12 years of service; they would have both Medicare as their primary and TRICARE as their secondary for life.

      For those who retire after 16 years of service; they would have Medicare as their primary  and TRICARE and dental coverage until the age of 65 .

    For those who retire after 20 years of service; they would have Medicare as their primary and TRICARE as their secondary for life and also had dental coverage for life.

   The spouses would have the same type of coverage.

    For those who serve less than 4 years and were not wounded; they would have a proportionately lesser amount of healthcare coverage.  Such as: for 1 year of service, they would have Medicare coverage as their primary for 10 years, etc.

     Of course the Medicare system will need the necessary changes as outlined in my book "Obamacare" to remain solvent in the future.

5.    The current VA clinics would gradually be converted to specialty care clinics which deal with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and rehabilitation centers for the current type of injuries now occurring in the battlefield with our military.
 This will gradually change healthcare for our veterans to a more privatized system which gives the veterans more choices and better access within the healthcare system; which also will be better for them in the long run.  The only loser with this proposal is the bureaucracy and the bureaucrats who prosper from it. The winners will be our veterans; for they are the ones that are most deserving of this change.