Friday, March 02, 2007

Veteran’s Hospitals Go from Great to Sorry in Months?

The White House is investigating military and veterans health care facilities as a result of horrific conditions in a Walter Reed hospital outpatient unit. Huh? Just months ago Time magazine reported on the outstanding performance of Veterans Administration hospitals. Prior to the complimentary report, the highly praised VA UnderSecretary (also a doctor) left for employment with hospital giant HCA. Since then KKR and a host of private equity firms took HCA private. Goldman Sachs among others is buying out HCA offspring, Triad Hospitals.

So what’s really going on? Is the President’s Review Panel a knee jerk investigation in response to bad PR? Were the reports of outstanding VA performance untrue months ago? Time may tell, but then again it may not.

After Hurricane Katrina, Bush sacked FEMA Chief Michael Chertoff but his White House Lessons Learned report compounded disaster upon disaster. In the VA case a general has been sacrificed. However, with the Bush administration, one can almost be assured they won’t offer the true story…

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