[Vision2020] Re: Schools and VA Hospitals

Mike Curley curley@turbonet.com
Sun, 7 Sep 2003 16:46:43 -0700


Oh, Jack, what puerile and spurious reasoning you've 
used this time.  Let's look at the supposedly clear 
analogies you espouse.  In the VA Hospital situation, Lad 
Hamilton assumes (apparently) that there is a larger 
system of (non-VA) hospitals available;  that those 
hospitals are capable of absorbing the VA patients;  that 
there is more adequate staff at those hospitals;  that the 
doctors, nurses and other skilled staff are better at those 
hospitals; and that there would be administrative savings 
by getting the US government out of the hospital business.

You claim that is analogous to the school situation.  
However, the private/parochial system is a small fraction 
of the size of the public school system;  the 
private/parochial system is unable to absorb anything but 
a small fraction of public students; there is no evidence 
that public school teachers are less skilled than 
private/parochial teachers;  there is no clear 
administrative savings (especially considering that the 
mandates and goals differ widely); AND, schools are 
funded and significantly controlled at the state and local 
level rather than by the Feds.  There is also no wait for 
"treatment" and there are not two tiers of students.  

There is a separate issue regarding the number of public 
school teachers who are union members and the impact 
that would have if they were to suddenly become 
private/parochial school employees.  Regardless, there 
simply is no reasonable analogy between VA Hospitals 
and public schools however you might wish there to be.  
I've always found your arguments to be based on reason 
and fact.  I don't think this one has much of either.

Mike Curley



On 7 Sep 03, at 15:16, John T. Wenders wrote:

Date sent:      	Sun, 7 Sep 2003 15:16:52 -0700
To:             	jwenders@uidaho.edu
From:           	"John T. Wenders" <jwenders@uidaho.edu>
Subject:        	Schools and VA Hospitals

> Lewiston Tribune
> Date: 08/22/2003
> Section: Opinion
> Page: 6A
> 
>   Don't close some VA hospitals -- close them all
> Ladd Hamilton  
> Closing Veterans Administration hospitals is a lot like
> closing military bases. No one in Congress wants to do it,
> no matter how good the arguments for closure might be. The
> VA is now asking Congress to let it close a number of
> veterans' hospitals and some other services that it says are
> no longer needed -- either because the aging veteran
> populations are moving around or to accommodate a trend
> toward outpatient care.
>     The VA has a typically bureaucratic name for the
>     process: Capital 
> Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES), but Sen.
> Ron Wyden of Oregon calls it a job killer in his state.
> Three of the proposed closures would occur there, one of
> them in White City, a small town that would lose 400 jobs.
> In an angry letter to the VA, Wyden said that in many
> communities across the country the potential loss of
> hospital care and beds is an issue ranking right up there
> with the national economy: "You are talking about a huge
> veteran population, and they basically have no place to
> turn."
>     A deputy director of the American Legion has declared
>     that "we 
> can't see how closing a hospital can solve any problems when
> we have 100,000 veterans standing in line waiting for
> appointments."
>     It's true that closing a VA hospital won't solve any
>     problems. But 
> closing them all might. The trouble with the VA's "enhanced
> services" proposal is that it does not go far enough. The
> veterans would get better care, without excessive standing
> in line, if the VA took itself out of the hospital business
> and let the veterans go, at the VA's expense, to the same
> hospitals that treat everybody else. The present system
> provides two levels of care -- one for veterans whose only
> option is a VA hospital and another for the general
> population. In much of the country the general hospital is
> better. VA hospitals are chronically short of staff and
> often a dumping ground for marginally skilled physicians.
>     The veterans deserve better. America needs to support
>     its troops 
> not only when they are overseas but after they are mustered
> out and facing the ills we all are heir to. -- L.H.
> 
> -------------------------------
> 
> A very amusing article. In making a case for privatizing
> veterans health care, Hamilton also, by the same logic, and 
> inadvertently I'm sure, makes a case for privatizing the
> government schools and going to school choice via vouchers.
> Hamilton makes an excellent case for hospital vouchers when
> he says:
> 
> "The veterans would get better care, without excessive
> standing in line, if the VA took itself out of the hospital
> business and let the veterans go, at the VA's expense, to
> the same hospitals that treat everybody else. The present
> system provides two levels of care -- one for veterans whose
> only option is a VA hospital and another for the general
> population. In much of the country the general hospital is
> better. VA hospitals are chronically short of staff and
> often a dumping ground for marginally skilled physicians."
> 
> The parallel between the Veteran's hospitals and the public
> schools is obvious, but completely missed by both Hamilton
> and the LMT. Given the LMT's continuing blind support for
> more public school spending, and it's unrelenting bashing of
> charter schools, home schooling, and vouchers, Recall that
> LMT editorial writer Jim Fisher tried to blame the Ruby
> Ridge disaster on the Idaho Legislature because it refused
> to regulate home schooling, thereby making the state
> attractive to home schoolers like Randy Weaver. In this
> context, Hamilton's statement is absolutely amazing.
> 
> With a few word changes, one could truthfully re-write his
> passage:
> 
> Don't close some Public Schools -- close them all
> 
> "The students would get better care if the government took
> itself out of the education business and let the students
> go, at the government's expense, to the private schools that
> treat others. The present system provides two levels of care
> -- one for students whose only option is a government school
> and another for those that go to private schools. In much of
> the country the private school is better."
> 
> But don't hold your breath waiting, the LMT's support for
> government schools is one of secular religion, not logic.
> 
> Jack
> 
> 
> -- 
> John T. Wenders
> Professor of Economics, University of Idaho
> Senior Fellow, The Commonwealth Foundation
> 
> Mailing Address:
> 2266 Westview Drive
> Moscow, ID  83843
> 
> Voice: 208/882-1831
> Fax:    208/882-3696
> Cell:   509/336-5811
> Alpine, AZ: 928/339-4342
> 
> www.uidaho.edu/~jwenders
>