Another "Win" For Privatization

I’m going to overlook the fact that this Philadelphia Daily News article was written by the utterly despicable Stu Bykofsky, because what matters is the story he uncovered.

It turns out that Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia applied in January of this year to receive our critically wounded military personnel for treatment, and their application was accepted in April (they applied to Health Net Federal Services and not the Veterans Administration directly; Health Net is – you guessed it – a contractor).

However, to date, Magee has yet to receive a patient for treatment (the hospital was rated 16th of all facilities of its type throughout the country by U.S. News and World Report).

As Bykofsky tells us…

I don't want to make this political, but Dr. Bruce M. Gans, chief medical officer of Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, says the VA system "has been actively dismantled over the last dozen years due to cost-cutting moves," resulting in "serious limitations" to the wounded getting top care near their homes.

Thanks, Repugs (even though Clinton was president for part of that period, the Dems did not run Congress).

So “Byko” does a good deed here. Congratulations (that bad, good-for-nothing “government” would have done the job, assuming a competent VA administrator was running the agency).

Of course, if the wish he articulated here were ever realized (God forbid), somehow I’m sure Magee, Kessler, and every hospital or treatment facility in the affected area (assuming it were here) would get more patients than they would ever want.