In the interest of showing interest in the troops when they are no longer troops, politicians have invested at least vocally, in promoting their efforts to improving VA care.   I’m all for improving this care, but I question the need to take a bureaucratic system that is already a poster child against government run health care of any sort, and simply making it bigger—and then calling that progress.  How that actually helps vets is beyond me.

It’s obvious that every vet (and their immediate family) deserves benefits, but instead of investing them into the running of the VA, invest them in the vets themselves. What they deserve is the kind of freedom they fought for.  Freedom to pick the types of services they want or need, in the places of their choosing, when it is convenient for them and their doctor.  They deserve the flexibility to access their benefits without navigating a byzantine administration process in advance, or for years after.

Step 1. It looks like the 2009 VA budget is estimated at 36 billion dollars.  Most of that will probably not end up as actual care or services so dismantle the VA as it currently exists and privatize any assets.  Pare it down to an administrative minimum and use the resulting  budgetary surplus to fund accounts for eligible vets.

Step2. Issue qualified veterans an HSA or similar health savings account, funded primarily from the new cash rich VA budget.  The HSA card should allow vets to use their available funds at any doctor or hospital of their choosing for covered care; allow them to use it for dental care, eyeglasses, band aids, mental health care, prescriptions, any relevant approved medical expense.

Step 3. Offer incentives to private insurance plans that support, or supplement the VA/HSA and its funding for Vets and family members.

Step 4. All transactions appear on one statement, traceable to the Vets HAS card.  This allows us to limit the role of the VA to defining what the card and its funds can be used for, and administering the aid to approved accounts-with some activity reserved for follow up to ensure compliance at both ends of transactions if that can’t be done by any other existing agency.

Step 5. Get out of the way.

I didn’t do any research for this except to get the budget numbers—I’m just editorializing so please add or challenge any assumptions that I would not otherwise be aware of.  While I admit I am attacking big government policies, and democrats favor these kinds of mechanisms, I’d much rather have a healthy discussion about what plagues the VA now, and how we can simplify the process to make it work better.

I can’t see why some form of what I have outlined wouldn’t work better than whatever we have now.  If vets need a 36 Billion dollar budget for care, most of that should be funding the Vets and their care, (Or a housing benefit, or job training, or a college fund, or supplemental life insurance, or tuition assistance or trade skills training for them or their kids) not the administration of the massive bureaucracy you must first navigate to find the leftover scraps that they call your VA ‘benefits.’

Adding an approved VA hospital in Manchester sounds nice, but lengthening the VA’s tentacles isn’t the best way to help the vets .  Politicians need to stop thinking about how to make more government, and start thinking about how very often, less is significantly more.  That would be a service worthy of the sacrifice of our soldiers and their families, for our freedom.