Saturday, April 10, 2021

Militarize Health

 The American right-wing are content to boost spending to its armed forces and to militarize its civilian police forces to turn it into a paramilitary. This article on CommonDreams suggests America now militarizes its healthcare services. 

The US Department of Veterans Affairs is a most generously government-funded institution providing free medical care to ex-service personnel.

The VA operates thousands of healthcare facilities in rich and poor places, including 170 VA Medical Centers and 1,074 outpatient sites.  It is national, integrated, non-profit, and relatively effective. In just three months, they've distributed over 3 million doses to over 2 million veterans plus their partners, their caregivers,  VA employees, and various other federal workers.

The VA's not-for-profit. Private shareholders play no role in the Veterans Affairs system. While the private sector, and even many nonprofit hospitals and healthcare systems, have fired or furloughed staff because the procedures they make their money off of weren’t taking place during the pandemic, the VA has been accepting non-veteran patients and delivering PPE to all sorts of public health programs. They’ve sent VA  staff to 49 states and territories and vaccinated people all over the country, including rural vets in Montana and homeless vets in Dallas.

Along with Medicare and Medicaid, Veteran health services is the basis for a future American free Medicare For All

No comments: