Tales From An American Single-Payer Health System

headline:

VA Scandals Raise The Specter Of Healthcare Rationing

The march toward single-payer health care will ultimately produce a scenario similar to this:

"Whistleblowers within the Veterans’ Administration health system are coming forward with tales of brutal disregard for the health and life of those who served our country. Allegations of extensive wait times for lifesaving care, deaths while waiting, and horrific mismanagement have triggered outrage.

Unfortunately, the VA abuses are just the tip of a much larger, more menacing iceberg. The iceberg is covert health care rationing, and it’s inherent in single-payer systems like the VA.

The obvious question to ask about the VA scandal is: Why? Why would a VA hospital administrator direct doctors not to perform colonoscopies until patients had three positive tests for bloody stools? Or why were VA employees ordered to “cook the books” and hide long wait times that veterans faced when seeking care from heart, cancer, or other specialists? Why did some VA administrators go so far as to create a secret waiting list to hide year-plus wait times?

There’s only one plausible answer to these questions: rationing. The VA is but a smaller version of the sort of government-run, single-payer health care with which the political left is so enamored.

When individuals receive care through the VA, it becomes the only payer and hence, the only decision-maker. The VA decides who gets care, when, and how much. Moreover, as the single payer, the VA bears the risk of loss: If tax dollars aren’t enough to pay for the care demanded, there’s only one result — rationing of care.

Rationing care can take many forms. It can be overt, like the Canadian or British health care systems, which have unambiguous, publicly-announced waiting times and coverage denials for certain procedures. Or rationing can be more subtle, with little or no public participation. This latter, covert form of rationing is what the VA has adopted."

If you love rationing healthcare, say on a political basis, maybe in hostile states or regions, then single-payer is the way to go. And that is the Left's main thrust, albeit barely concealed. But you can bet that abortion will be generously funded and with immediate access, although without any health or legal oversight whatsoever (just like now).