The Department of Veterans Affairs proudly proclaims that it operates programs that benefit veterans and their families by offering education, rehabilitation, disability and death benefits, as well as home loan guaranties, pensions, burials and health care.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal today, Karl Zinsmeister uses the VA to highlight the consequences of socialism. It was widely reported that vets died waiting for care at VA hospitals and those hospitals falsified records of wait times to cover up their incompetence.
But what are the consequences of discharge to grave dependence?
Zinsmeister notes that after World War II just 11 percent of veterans were granted disability payments. Though only a small fraction of post-911 vets have actually engaged in fighting, today close to half of vets being discharged request lifelong disability benefits.
“The more plausible diagnosis for most veterans is that they suffer from the invisible wounds of government dependency,” the op-ed suggests.
Zinsmeister notes that Medicare for All might not sound so attractive if it were called VA Benefits for All.
VA hospital in Pheonix. (AP pix via WSJ)
4TH ST8 
“Zinsmeister notes that Medicare for All might not sound so attractive if it were called VA Benefits for All.”
And that hits the nail on the head. Truth in government policies, along with the inevitable consequences, should be placed on the endangered species list.
My father applied for benefits for a shrapnel wound following his discharge from the US Navy in 1946. His claim was denied and he lived until age 89 with some Japanese steel in his shoulder. Never complained, and was alway the best fly fisherman in our family.
Back then they were expected to suck it up. My father said he wouldn’t wear his Purple Heart because he didn’t want to tell people where he was wounded.
So we are using the mismanagement of the VA to condemn all “socialized medicine”, but completely ignore Medicare and the “socialized medicine” programs of every other developed nation. According to this article, socialized medicine kills people, yet we die younger than the people any of those developed nations. Man, our lifestyle must be REALLY awful – or is it just possible that “socialized medicine” works better than our pseudocapitalistic cartel-run system? Besides, why would conservatives worry about a few patient deaths when they are quite happy leaving millions uninsured?
Never met a republican yet that gave a hoot about much more than their owns pocketbook and if that means vets gotta die then, in the words of the guy who let them fight so he could heal his bone spurs :
“That’s what they signed up for”