Can government run a health care system?

When the President's budget for FY 1995 was sent to Congress in January, 1994, the total VA budget was upped by another $1,300,000,000 to the highest figure ever--$39,200,000,000. Of that sum, $16,100,000,000 (an increase of $500,000,000 over 1993) would have gone for VA health care for a projected patient case load of 2,800,000, up only 27,000 from 1993. Brown predicted those numbers would permit the VA to build one new medical center, five new nursing homes, and one new outpatient clinic. So much for Clinton's projected $1,000,000,000 in VA savings.

The existing VA system could have been the precursor of America's future national health care system. On Nov. 3, 1993, in remarks denouncing the American insurance industry's opposition to parts of his health care plan, Clinton said, "There's a lot of money in the health care system that doesn't have a rip to do with health care; ... [it's] over-complicated, burdensome, bureaucratic." The President might have been describing the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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