What the media isn't commenting on in the Walter Reed fiasco is the fact that behind it is another failed conservative policy -- privatization.

It is one more example of how conservative market fundamentalism is an utter and complete failure.

http://www.unbossed.net/index.php?itemid=1354

Here is a partial chronology of events:

February 21, 2006
GAO announced it was awarding the contract to IAP after years of hearings and protests. That decision noted:

On January 17, 2006, the Army revised its September 29, 2004, conclusion, and announced that it would be more economical to perform base operations support services at Walter Reed using a contract awarded to IAP World Services, Inc., than to have these services continue to be performed in-house using government employees. Mr. King, an Army employee, filed this protest 10 days later. Shortly thereafter, the Army and IAP asked that the protest be dismissed on the ground that Mr. King is not an interested party to challenge the Walter Reed cost comparison study in this forum.

Nice cushy relationship between the Army and IAP on this move.

That decision was reported in govexec.com including more explanations about the process and why concerns should have been reported more widely.

February 24, 2006

The American Federation of Government Employees, which provided funding to back the protest, said the impetus to appeal came from Walter Reed managers who were disappointed to see how the competition process played out. While the initial employee bid was $7 million less than that of IAP Worldwide Services, a mid-stream solicitation change resulted in a recalculation of the bids by all parties and in IAP's bid coming in $7 million lower, said John Threlkeld, a lobbyist for AFGE.

Threlkeld said the process for recalculating the employee bid was flawed, resulting in the inflation of the estimate that rendered it uncompetitive with IAP's bid.

In addition to challenging the validity of the cost recalculation process, the employee group argued that the competition lasted longer than is allowed, and should be canceled. The fiscal 2006 Defense appropriations act, like previous appropriations acts, stipulates that an A-76 competition should last no more than 30 months.

March 23, 2006
A new govexec.com story reported efforts by Eleanor Holmes Norton to fight against privatization:

Employees at Walter Reed Army Medical Center earlier this week lost their final administrative appeal of a decision to outsource base operations work as the result of a public-private job competition.. . .

Even though the appeal was denied, Army officials have yet to sign the contract with IAP Worldwide Services, [Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.] said. She said at the rally that she had secured a postponement of up to six months, pending an inquiry into irregularities in the almost six-year public-private job competition.

1. Should health care for veterans be "re-nationalized" given the utter failure of private companies to provide decent health care to our vets?"

2. Will the horror story of the Walter Reed privatization become the impetus for finally bringing the US into the 21st and getting legislation that provides for government financed national health care insurance for all citizens, not just vets?

1. Should health care for veterans be "re-nationalized" given the utter failure of private companies to provide decent health care to our vets?"

IAP is the company who is also responsible for the ice fiasco in New Orleans after Katrina. And IAP is headed by – whaddya know – a former Halliburton executive.


Privatization could work if the sleazy practice of political “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine” could be curtailed. Human nature being what it is, I don’t see much chance of that happening. So, yes, veteran’s care should be re-nationalized. The government is responsible for sending them to war; they should be responsible for giving them first-class care when they come home wounded.

Quality of the medical professionals involved in veteran care hasn't been the issue. At issue are decrepit facilities, horrible administration and organization (more specifically,lack of), short staffing, etc. because of all the budget cuts. These are the first things to go when a budget is slashed. And responsibility for budgeting resides at the very top.

2. Will the horror story of the Walter Reed privatization become the impetus for finally bringing the US into the 21st and getting legislation that provides for government financed national health care insurance for all citizens, not just vets?

I hope it shows that conflict of interest exists when those mandating privatization are doing so to feather their own nests by showing favoritism to companies they have vested interests in. But I doubt it. This is really about corruption and cronyism, and until that can be checked, I don’t know how privatization would ever work.

1. Should health care for veterans be "re-nationalized" given the utter failure of private companies to provide decent health care to our vets?"

I think we are putting the conclusions before the evidence here.

You think to a labor organization and based upon that, announce (wholly without evidence) that the privatization effort has failed. Perhaps the effort has failed, but no evidence has been presented to support that.

We can conclude that the privatization move was unpopular among government workers who were presumably downsized.

Ah but wait, at the bottom of the story is a link to two WaPost stories regarding neglect. The lead example is an army mother who wasn't told of a shuttle bus between the place she was staying at and the hospital. She apparently doesn't speak English (since her problem was solved with a call to a Spanish-speaking hotline). Cry me a river.

The problems are focused not on the hospital care, but on the outpatient care. It seems the major complaint was lack of help arranging and then getting to appointments. Paperwork and lack of record keeping and record retention was the next complaint.

Ironically, as the article goes on and on about how the system doesn't do enough, the soldiers complain that they are treated like babies.


link to story

Interestingly, that five page story does not mention "privatization" anywhere. Another interesting tidbit: an Army general was relieved of command at WRAMC because of the mess there. Does that indicate that the problem was privatization? Perhaps we have privatized the Army brass? Veteran Care to Be Reviewed After Firing of General





All those civilians getting into trouble.

Here's another article claiming that this is all due to privatization. No evidence, just accusations.

Now, there is a memo that says the privatization has led to a loss of personnel.



So finally we have something to base our accusations on. Army Times: Walter Reed woes bring turmoil at the top

Ah, here's an interesting tidbit:


Now, when did Rumsfeld and Bush get in charge over there...

2. Will the horror story of the Walter Reed privatization become the impetus for finally bringing the US into the 21st and getting legislation that provides for government financed national health care insurance for all citizens, not just vets?

Yes, socialized medicine for all!! Well, if Obama is elected he has promised just such a thing, so we have some hope that our decrepit, overtaxed, burdensome, costly system will be replaced by a shining example of enlightened caregiving.

Thanks for making blanket accusations about Conservatives, however. It is so refreshing when one is judged by individual actions and not broad based ideologies.

Just remember that Tricare is the "HMO that goes to War!" according to Sue Bailey Undersecretary of Defense for Health Affairs under Clinton.

Why is universal health care insurance "socialized medicine"? You apparently can't argue the merits so are stuck using label lieu of arguments. This is how conservatives "argue."

America's health care system is broken. Hopefully, we will join every other modern nation and deal with the reality -- private greed-driven insurance companies cannot provide adequate health care coverage -- and once again resolve to have the best health system in the world, rather than have 45 millions American, including about 8 million poor kids, essentially without access to health care.



Why am I not surprised. Thanks for the information. Whenever the conservative outsource a government responsibility, diaster follows. This time it's a horror story that Americans have to face in the form of testimony from mangled, disfigured vets.

Further information on the conservative outsourcing of care at Walter Reed and the resulting third world conditions that conservative policies promote.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/0...walter_reed.php

Landru Guide Us, thanks for ignoring my entire response and focusing on the quick response to the second question that is so unrelated to the first as to expect the third question to be : "Will the LA Dodgers win the pennant this season?"

There is little evidence that privatization caused the problems at Walter Reed. The VA has historically been rife with problems. The VA paid out over $100 million in 2004 alone for malpractice settlements. It has over half a billion in malpractice suits pending against it. Go team go. Obviously if it is government run, it is competent.

What I am asking is some evidence that it was privatization that led to these problems. We have one memo that says that qualified people left due to the partial privatization of WRAMC. Of course, it leaves out the very crucial detail of who left. If it is doctors, then we have no connection, since the problems here are not care related, they are bureaucracy related.

The VA has been terrible for decades. Remember "Born on the Fourth of July"?

Now, had the debate been more along the lines of whether or not WRAMC is properly staffed given the increased burden of care put on it by the GWOT, then we could have a more rational and less accusatory debate. Some evidence could be provided of pre-Iraq versus post-Iraq staff levels and care levels.

However, little hard evidence has been forwarded pinning the blame here on privatization. The Army has fired uniformed personnel, not private contractors. A great job of reverse CYA, I guess.

You might want to read this and get back with us.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/0...walter_reed.php

"The process dragged on for several years, and finally it was determined that the bid by federal civilian employees at Walter Reed was the better one. However, that decision was overturned by the Army Audit Agency, which was upheld by the GAO on a technicality. This allowed IAP to get a five-year, $120 million contract.

Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has been gathering evidence that the prospect of outsourcing (and likely job cuts) had a detrimental effect on morale and efficiency at Walter Reed. That idea is not just theory. Last September, Walter Reed Garrison Commander Peter Garibaldi sent an internal memorandum to his superiors warning that substantial numbers of skilled workers were leaving because of the impending takeover by IAP. "

EDITED TO REMOVE AD HOMINEM ATTACK

It would be poor logic to conclude that because one case of privatization has failed that all privatization have failed. I would expect sometimes things are not done correctly at Army hospitals run by the government or private firms.

I think the story points towards oversight not a problem with privatization. Having proper oversight is a responsibility of our elected officials who, in this case, is George Bush. He and his staff now need to prove they are up to the responsibility of taking care of our injured troops.

It does seem a leap to move from the Walter Reed Hospital story to a need for national health care. I do not see how the two are that closely connected.

There does seem to be some red flags about the particular private firm in question. I can not see how you can reach any inferences to other private firms.

Walter Reed is not part of the VA from what I’ve learned. And VA malpractice lawsuits have nothing to do with what is going on at Walter Reed. Have any WR doctors been sued for malpractice? What is not in dispute is that when IAP took over facilities management, the staff went from 600 government employees to 50 IAP employees. So IAP may have thought they were being incredibly efficient and all, but their customers (in this case, wounded men and women) were the ones who suffered as a result.

Since IAP was contracted to handle facilities management, then no doctors were ousted at their behest. The issue isn't the quality of medical care the soldiers receive, it is how they are received, processed, and their living conditions. It is not totally privatization that led to the problems at Walter Reed. Just as important are federal budget cuts, an increase in wounded servicemen and women, and a lack of preparation for said wounded.

When you have the Bush-appointed undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness saying that soldiers’ medical care is less important than building bombs (as Chu did in an interview with the WSJ), then there is a problem with the top folks appointed by the Bush administration.

Another Bush appointee, Dr. Winkenwerder was also involved in the funding fiascos at WR. You’d think these guys would be more “in the know” about goings-on in Iraq, like, oh, say, wounded soldiers need care????


IAP was contracted to supply facilities management. The blame for the horrid conditions at WR lands square at their feet. When you are more concerned with cutting costs than providing quality care, then care is going to suffer. Private companies are always more concerned with the bottom line.

Well, example after example of the failed conservative policy of privatization can be marshalled. The deregulation of the savings and loan industry (resulting in the biggest taxpayer bail out in history); the privatization of airport security (resulting in 9-11); the deregulation of energy trading (resulting in Enron); the privatization of military support in Iraq (leading to billions of taxpayer dollars going to Haliburton and "disappearing")

If this doesn't convince of the failure of conservative ideology, what will?

1. Should health care for veterans be "re-nationalized" given the utter failure of private companies to provide decent health care to our vets?"

No. My husband's private company, along with many others, are currently contracted on a project to bring about the DOD's medical network into the 21st century. The way the system now works is basically there is no system. This project will bring every person who has ever served or is currently serving in the US military together in one place, one database. The failure has yet to even happen as the transition you claim to have already fully occurred has not. This project began last year and is scheduled to go for another 4 yrs.
Although this has little to do with actual physical care and services for the Vets I do think it is an important component and it seems to have finally gotten the attention it deserves. I hope we can bring about change for the system entirely.

2. Will the horror story of the Walter Reed privatization become the impetus for finally bringing the US into the 21st and getting legislation that provides for government financed national health care insurance for all citizens, not just vets?
I guess Switzerland is not in the 21st century by your standards. Also my sister lives in the UK and was just here for a visit, and those who have to depend on only the government health care services are also pitied as having no health insurance much as we do in the US. Many choose to pay for and use private health coverage.

Even if the case at hand did prove the ills of privatisation in this case, that does NOT mean that privatisation (And I can't believe I'm about to argue this) is somehow a bad thing. Personally, I am always confused by the two extremes in the case of nationalisation vs. privatisation: some on one extreme believe there can be NO nationalised industruies, which is silly, while ... well, nobody really believes in complete nationalisation any more, not since about 1970.

The formula is simple. If the product at a certain standard produced by an industry is sufficiently important to a society that it needs to be maintained regardless of profitability, then the industry should be nationalised. if that is NOT the case, then it should be privatised. Both sides can point to horror stories I suppose, but for every 'horror of privatisation' story (for example, the Royal mail in the UK right now) there is a 'horror of nationalisation' story (For example, British telecom in the early 1980s)


The only real problem comes when conservatives, as some do from time to time, take up the argument of privatisation for the sake of privatisation, because nationalisation is somehow evil on principle. This attitude is self-destructive and illogical, in some cases nationalisation is very worthwhile and valid, in others it would be a terrible idea.

Try not to cite a single case and use it to prove some overarching principle. using this case to discredit 'privatisation' has about as much sense as using the 1980s Soviet economy to discredit ' nationalisation'. neither extreme has any validity.

I totally agree with this. It shouldn't matter to society if DVD players are cheap or expensive -- let the market set the price and let those who make DVD players profit all they like.

But when it comes to energy, medical care, food, then moral and social issues intrude. Having medical care for the wealthy only is simply immoral. Having energy policy determined by Exxon is simply bad for America.

I would note that our system for producing food is in fact highly shielded from market forces. Not only do we provide subsidies to agricultural corporations, but we suspend anti-trust, and allow for various combines to control prices as a means of price insurance. This insures that when there is a glut of oranges the price doesn't plummet so low that the next year there are no oranges as producers leave the market. It's a good policy, though it remains hidden and uncommented on by the market fundamentalism who talk about US food production being a triumph of unfettered capitalism (it couldn't get any farther from the truth)



You apparently don't have all the facts. Are you for regulating insurance companies like the Swiss do? I am. But you can't have your cake and eat it do, as the Swiss system shows:

"While everyone in Switzerland is obliged to buy insurance, the 87 Swiss health insurance companies also have to offer a basic health care plan priced without regard to risk.

The companies can't make a profit on this basic plan, and they compete for profits by offering high or low deductibles and supplemental benefits. A healthy 24-year-old living in Bern pays the same premium as someone like Mr. Zbinden (300 Swiss francs a month, or about $242). "

http://healthinsurance.about.com/b/a/246883.htm

You think our insurance companies would go for this, or tirelessly lobby Congress against it?




Further evidence that this problem didn't occur over night, but was enabled by conservative republicans over years. Democrats tried to stop the privatization scheme:

http://mikulski.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=262947

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a letter today, Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) joined several of her Senate colleagues, including Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.), to urge Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Ranking Member Robert C. Byrd (D-W.V.) to preserve language in the House Defense Appropriations bill that prohibits the U.S. Army from outsourcing 350 federal jobs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A similar provision, introduced by Senators Mikulski and Sarbanes, was defeated by a close 50-48 vote, during the bill’s consideration in the Senate last week.-snip-

And here's the vote which I dug up from the Senate records
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll...&vote=00234

This is so hard to even respond to without my eyes twitching.

From what I've read, the entire situation comes down to systemic failure. This wasn't the failure of one ideology. It was the failure of the people in charge to recognize their priorites, to recognize that their jobs weren't as bean counters, but to ensure that our soldiers who have served with honor are given the best treatment for their conditions possible.

The federal government, and we all know this, is a penny pinching machine. Whether or not a Democrat or a Republican is in the White House, this will always be true. And when the focus of any organization, any business, especially those who's services are providing care, fail to focus on the level of care, political ideology is thrown out the window. It's a human failure. Plain and simple.

I guess since I go to a military hospital in the Walter Reed health care system specifically Dewitt, I should say something. Everyone I know goes to Walter Reed hospital because it is better than Dewitt. I was told when I arrived here a year ago, "Don't go to Dewitt! Sign up for Walter Reed!" But, because I hate driving in the city, I prefer the five minute car ride to a twenty minute one.

Dewitt is understaffed, in large part because military medical personnel deploy too. So, we have medical personnel deployed all over the globe and not just at stateside facilities. With the deluge of wounded coming in, and a small supply of staff the problems at Walter Reed are not surprising, nor exclusive to Walter Reed.

Limited funding + low levels of staff due to deployments + tremendous increase in patient load = Big problem.

It has little if anything to do with privatization.

The conflict in Iraq or quagmire really has been going on now for sometime, its not a conflict that erupted yesterday, or even the week before that. I have no clue as to the structure of the hospital or what ideological battle taking place for control of the universe. The sad fact is everyone is so concerned about all of this wearing there little lapels and so on yet our troops come to inhabit a medical facility that is really just putrid overall in regards to marks.

IN the troves of money spent by this administration none of it could have ever with any sight of mind been laid aside for what was going to be an influx of casualties from some epic battle we have to win? To me this is just another loss in a series of such by this administration, people could not manage a paper bag.

Actually that would be a reason why a good argument could be made for privatization, they can't be deployed so they would be more dependable to be available. Of course you could simply mark AGR or even active duty as "non-deployable" but then you have even less of a pool that you would be able to send to Iraq or other area's so privatization makes sense in this case.

The penny pinching, as Krugman shows, is in fact an ideological failure, the result of conservative destructive budgetary policies. It all came together at Walter Reed. It's an exemplum of what happens when conservative policies are in effect.

http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.co...nd-squalor.html

PAUL KRUGMAN: Valor and Squalor

Summary:

By the early years of this decade the Veterans Health Administration was, by many measures, providing the highest-quality health care in America. (It probably still is: Walter Reed is a military facility, not run by the V.H.A.)
The quagmire in Iraq has vastly increased the demands on the Veterans Administration, yet since 2001 federal outlays for veterans’ medical care have actually lagged behind overall national health spending.
To save money, the administration has been charging veterans for many formerly free services. For example, in 2005 Salon reported that some Walter Reed patients were forced to pay hundreds of dollars each month for their meals.
Two months before the invasion of Iraq the V.H.A., which previously offered care to all veterans, introduced severe new restrictions on who is entitled to enroll in its health care system. As the agency’s Web site helpfully explains, veterans whose income exceeds as little as $27,790 a year, and who lack “special eligibilities such as a compensable service connected condition or recent combat service,” will be turned away.
all this red tape was created not by the inherent inefficiency of government bureaucracy, but by the Bush administration’s penny-pinching. [that's a fact, related to the above and other cost-cutting measures Bush introduced]
IAP Worldwide Services, a company run by two former Halliburton executives, received a large contract to run Walter Reed under suspicious circumstances: the Army reversed the results of an audit concluding that government employees could do the job more cheaply.










Krugman disagrees with you in a detailed and well-reasoned article that gives the history of how we got here through failed conservative policies.
http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.co...nd-squalor.html

This is an opinion piece, not a detailed "article"...it's as informative as any editorial. I have to wonder what makes Krugman think that the Veteran's Health Administration was providing the highest-quality health care in America (of course, he's careful to qualify that statement with "by many measures"...wonder what those are?). How many military hospitals has Krugman obtained medical care in? On what does he base his judgements here? Note that it doesn't say veteran's medical care funding hasn't increased substantially, it's using overall national private health spending as a basis for comparison. Note also that it doesnt mention that Veteran's healthcare funding also lagged behind overall national health spending all through the 90s. This isn't rocket science. There is a finite amount of money and our forces are being taxed. The medical staff is taxed, too. When Clinton was in office, for all the grandios things this opinion piece has to say about him, about 1/3 of all military medical hospitals closed, along with most of the accompanying staff. Of course this happened to all of the military. If we had wished to continue with cold war spending habits, back then our military medical system could support a full-scale war with the Soviet Union and its anticipated high rates of casualties. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Warsaw Pact led to a major reassessment of ALL U.S. defense policy, to include medical care. But Clinton didn't have a deluge of war injured to contend with, or else he would have had the same problem...worse, actually, because I was there when Tricare took over Champus and I'll tell you it really SUCKED for the first several years, though it still is far from optimal.



Sorry, payments while staying in the military medical facilities started before Bush. "Formerly" was a while ago. The payments are LOW, but they are there...I made such payments when I had my first child at Shaw AFB, SC, in 1998.

I thought this link would be pertinent to this discussion. If you click on the 'lodging' button, you'll see the number of facilities available to military members and their families. The main one is the Mologne house (building 20), and there are also Fisher houses in that area. No mention of Building 18. I'm assuming that building 18 wasn't intended to be used for this purpose, probably a former barracks or dormatory or something that they opened to deal with the unforseen (though not unforseeable unfortunately) increase in patients.

This is typical bureaucracy at work. It isn't fast, and budget constraints and continuous reductions in all defense agencies and defense-wide infrastructure cutbacks (over the course of more than a decade) set the paradigm one way. Now it has shifted and the bureaucracy has to adjust again.

An opinion piece supported by facts, which I conveniently summarized for you:

Summary:

By the early years of this decade the Veterans Health Administration was, by many measures, providing the highest-quality health care in America. (It probably still is: Walter Reed is a military facility, not run by the V.H.A.)
The quagmire in Iraq has vastly increased the demands on the Veterans Administration, yet since 2001 federal outlays for veterans’ medical care have actually lagged behind overall national health spending.
To save money, the administration has been charging veterans for many formerly free services. For example, in 2005 Salon reported that some Walter Reed patients were forced to pay hundreds of dollars each month for their meals.
Two months before the invasion of Iraq the V.H.A., which previously offered care to all veterans, introduced severe new restrictions on who is entitled to enroll in its health care system. As the agency’s Web site helpfully explains, veterans whose income exceeds as little as $27,790 a year, and who lack “special eligibilities such as a compensable service connected condition or recent combat service,” will be turned away.
all this red tape was created not by the inherent inefficiency of government bureaucracy, but by the Bush administration’s penny-pinching. [that's a fact, related to the above and other cost-cutting measures Bush introduced]
IAP Worldwide Services, a company run by two former Halliburton executives, received a large contract to run Walter Reed under suspicious circumstances: the Army reversed the results of an audit concluding that government employees could do the job more cheaply.


You seem to disagree with one of the fact, but didn't really offer rebutting evidence, just that fees started before Bush (why didn't he end them?) and that you think the care wasn't good "by any standard.". Seem like a strong supported article if you can't



Limited tax revenues IF you cut taxes on the rich. I think that's Krugman's point.

Here's a concept: raise taxes on the rich to give decent treatment to those who have sacrificed in our wars. Is that really to much to ask of millionaires and billionaires who DIDN'T fight in Iraq.




Cynicism about "bureacracy" is typical rightwing discourse intended to valorize privatization without having to provide an argument. I'm surprised you would engage in that kind of "argument by labelling" here.

What facts are you speaking of? There is no supporting evidence for his assertions...kind of like what you are accusing me of.

I'll break down your summary
By what measures was the healthcare of the VA high quality previously? Exactly what leads him to believe this was the case?



Addressed this above. The fees are not new. Why didn't he take away the fees? Well, that would take money. It's a rather strange and inconsistent comment considering you're basing the thrust of your argument (as is this "article") on the supposition that things were better before.



There are millions of former soldiers in the US. Veteran's medical services do not cover every single person who ever spent at least two years in the military for the rest of their natural lives. That has never been its intent.

Read this for much needed background on this subject

Another link, for some sorely needed modicum of perspective here (during Krugman's supposed gravy years for the VA)

No inconsistency on my part. I'm for raising taxes on the wealthy (rather than lowering them as Bush -- guess what? -- did) so that injured vets don't have to pay fees for their medical care.

I think that during war time it's a small thing to ask billionaires to pay higher taxes so that vets who fought their wars don't have to pay any fees.

In contrast Bush lowered taxes on the top 1%, so by definition he had less money to pay for vet care and thus didn't do a thing to get rid of the fees.

I don't quite understand your argument except the usual "Clinton did it" chorus one hears from the right. Are you saying it's OK to lower taxes on the rich and not get rid of the fees injured vets pay for their medical care? Do you agree with Bush's policy or not, because I don't

I thought this topic (which you started) was about privatization in military hospitals, not who should be taxed and how much.

I'm answering the first question to be debated here. Let's review; You claimed that privatization led to the problems at Walter Reed, to which I countered (since I live in this area) that Dewitt (my hospital) is much worse than Walter Reed. This would indicate that the problem is probably not privatization, but overtaxed staff due to deployment rates and cutbacks. Walter Reed is considered to be GOOD by comparison to many other military hospitals (not all, San Antonio in particular has some fine facilities). You then told me that I was mistaken, and cited this "detailed and informative article" as evidence to the ostensible contrary.

The article used the former administration as a basis for comparison. I'm simply citing evidence that this article is wrong, and now you are rejecting that comparison as the "usual chorus" when it doesn't suite your argument? I wasn't the one who brought it up in the first place. Military medicine has been suffering for a while. I see nothing to indicate that the problems are in any way associated with privatization. That's all.

The connection is obvious to me and highlighted by Krugman. If you've decided to privatize Walter Reed, as Bush and his conservative associates did, then you no longer care about fixing the problems, like fees being paid by brain damaged vets, while billionaires get tax cuts.

Instead, you do what Bush and the GOP Congress did, and just let things fester.

Now, if you aren't for privatization (and most progressives aren't and Democrats tried to stop it), then you address problems, like the fees, and make things better. And que mirabela -- that's just what Democrats are doing now.

Does that make the ocnnection between Bush's shameful tax cuts to billionaires and privatization of Walter Reed clearer?

No it does not.

Funding problems are not the same as privatization problems. The system at Walter Reed could be underfunded and still be publicly run. It could be sufficiently funded and privatized and there may be problems.

We simply cannot draw conclusions without knowing the specific causes of the problems at WRAMC. These problems seem to be bureaucratic and systemic rather than funding related. However, without the detailed investigation (which is underway), we cannot point to the specific causes of the problems at WRAMC.

Would the following statement be true: "Raising taxes on billionaires would solve the problems at WRAMC?"

We have no basis to say that it would. Therefore your statement does not make the connection.

Landru, I don't think you understand the military when it comes to civilian interaction and jobs being performed.

Civilian companies do millions (if not billions) of dollars worth of work for the US military. This could be anything from painting housing to housing people at a medical facility.

Your article is from Tom Paine.com... a very liberal blog. It's not really what I'd consider a source of factual information. It would be like me posting Ann Coulter. Seriously.

The fact of the matter is that the military LEADERSHIP is supposed to be in charge of handling this, and to say that Senior NCO's all the way up to Field Grade Officers didn't know about this would be literally absurd.

AMLORD- Born on the Fourth of July is a GREAT example. The VA is never going to win awards. They're underfunded, poorly staffed, and as far as hospitals go it's one notch above the free clinic usually. I'm not sure this, however, is a great example. Many of these folks were active duty.

Walter Reed is one of the best Trauma facilities on earth. This issue is literally terrible. However- privatization and this issue aren't related. Bad jobs get done in the private sector as well as in the military. The truth of the matter is that mediocrity is rarely if ever tolerated in private enterprise... while in the gov't it's usually expected. The military usually isn't as bad as your county clerk or DMV, as efficiency is usually important, but in some cases this is quite the contrary. No competition = opportunity for sloth every day of the week.

Privatization is definitely related to this issue! IAP took over facilities management from the government, dumped 600 federal employees and replaced them with 50 IAP personnel! 5 - 0. Now, government always overstaffs, so let’s say a reasonable employee count would have been half, or 300 (probably should be closer to 450, but what the heck). IAP obviously thought they could make more money by cutting that down to 50. Now you have 50 people doing the job of at least 300. Facilities go to hell in a handbasket, and nobody at IAP gives a damn because they are focused on the bottom line – profit. How is this not directly related to the issue of decrepit facilities at WR? The private employees (IAP) are the lazy, inefficient bastards in this case, NOT the government!

Of course it is. Such connections are always quite clear when viewed through political blinders.



Those wonderful blinders again....which automatically filter out the same things happening from the other side of the aisle.



First, you are confusing 'progressive' and 'Democrat'...which is the topic of another thread (as well as 'conservative' and 'Rebublican'--which has been addressed in other threads). It is also quite clear from your posts here that you are confusing tax cuts applied across the board with something only applying to the rich, and further applying the usual liberal mantra of 'let other people pay for this'. Finally, you are making the false assumption that only one party/philosophy is concerned with addressing problems, when the fact is that it is a matter of difference of approach. Which is the wonderful thing about political blinders...they make everything seem so clear, regardless of the facts. However, they also make meaningful debate near impossible.



Ahh, but with those blinders on it does! Blinders also allow such conclusions to be drawn without knowing such causes, since the wearers can just assume they're politically/philosophically based. Why wait for the investigation when it is so much easier to just jump to a conclusion which our blinders automatically align with our political perspective? The world is indeed very clear when these blinders are used, and telling the wearer that the view is actually a bit murky is seldom succesful since it is quite clear from their perspective.

Well, if we check into what has happened here, we see that IAP took over managing the facilities at IAP on February 4, 2007. How things have fallen apart in the last month. My God, how incompetent they are that they caused all of these problems before they took over management.



Seems odd when the number "50 employees" has been bandied about. IAP claims that more than twice that number work in facility maintenance and almost 6 times that number are employed by them at WRAMC.

The contract was awarded in January 2006, but management of the facility was not handed over until last month.

Now when we re-read the Washington Post story dated February 18, 2007 we can see that the problems did not arise from the privatization, which had begun only 2 weeks before.

Yes, that certainly does make a difference. I stand corrected. I was not aware of that (wonder why IAP took so long to issue their statement, anyway?), and there has been nothing in any of the news outlets to that effect. So, now the responsibility lands straight into the lap of the Army and Chu and Winkenwerder.

And just for the record, I still don't think awarding the contract to IAP is a wise move, what with its poor record in New Orleans, and its unfortunate ties to Halliburton.

Thanks for the help Amlord, busy day at the office and long lunch in the Dallas sunshine (it's in the 70's all this week!).

I appreciate that you see the light on this matter Daffy, but what I think people don't understand is that regardless of the civilian company working the job, there will always be a military (or GS) officer in charge of ensuring the job gets done. This applies to truck maintenance or delivering prescription drugs. Contract work ALWAYS has an officer directly assigned to ensure that these matters are handled. In many cases, it's a very lassiez faire relationship, but none the less a DoD employee is responsible for ensuring its effectiveness. At NAS JRB Ft Worth, for instance, there are quite a few crews (i.e. cleaning, bldg maintenance, etc) that handle assigned tasks, but there is generally a GS employee that handles invoicing and ensuring the work is done.

Furthermore, the issue with a company tied to Halliburton is a little overboard. The truth of the matter is that Halliburton has handled the US Military's operational needs for decades, including during the Clinton administration.

Ah, nothing quite like neutral, fair and non-loaded questions to get debate going .

1. Privatization is not to blame for the embarassment that is Walter Reed, as AMlord and others have said, there were bureaucratic problems completely unrelated to privatization that brought about this catastrophe. In addition, and again, as AMlord pointed out, the private organization that was brought in had a grand total of TWO WEEKS of being relatively "in charge" of the hospital...The mistakes made there did NOT happen in a two week time span.

2. First let me translate question two into a question that acutally asks a non-rhetorical question: Will what happened at Walter Reed result in a nationalized/socialized health care system in America?

No. No it won't, mostly because privatization had nothing to do with the failures of Walter Reed.

CP

That doesn't offer much comfort, given that the military officers were either oblivious to the problems right across the street from their palatial homes, or they just didn't give a damn. Since IAP is only recently on scene, the officers in charge of WR, the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (Chu) and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs (Winkenwerder) all have a lot to answer for. The officers were fired, but the Bush appointees still have their jobs (so far, anyway).

The logic seemed to be presented that since privatization was used at Walter Reed and there were problems, there should be no more privatization.

Now it seems that there was no privatization at Walter Reed and there were problems. Using the same logic, would not those in the first instance now be calling for more privatization now that lack of privatization has been discredited?

I think either is flawed logic as there are many more factors involved than whether Walter Reed does or does not use privatization.

Hmmm. Bush decides to privatize Walter Reed and starts the process going; he underfunds it for 6 years; and you don't see the connection.

I do and so does Klugman.

If you plan to wash your hands of an asset due to an overactive faith in privatization, you don't think that might influence how you manage the asset after deciding to privatize?





After deciding to privatize Walter Reed, Bush and his ideologues in Congress underfund it for six years and let it deteriorate.

See a pattern forming?

Krugman does and he explains why.


[




a strawman argument. Nobody claims Walter Reed declined into disgrace in a few month. As Krugman's article points out (maybe you should read it), is that the decision to privatize by the market fundamentalist in the Bush Administration led to their neglect of the facility for years, because they had decided to outsource it.

The predictable result: a decline in services and shameful treatment of vets. That always happens when you privatize and replace a commitment to excellence with an obsession with profits.

Personally I think profiting off the pain and suffering of vets who fight our wars is shameful, but conservatives seem to put outsourcing above all other values.



First you got to be kidding. The whole purpose of privatization is to make money -- not to enhance health care of vets. So when there is a choice between maximizing profits and enhancing health care a private company will choose the former everytime. Outsourcing is about profit, not providing better services. Just ask anybody who had to deal with the service department of an American company, by talking with a representative in Bangalor.

Second, I think it's shameful, shameful for anybody to make a profit off the pain and suffering of our veterans who fought in our wars. We should fully fund government services for them with the commitment of providing the best care in the world. It's this commitment to excellence that distinguishes progressives from conservatives.

First of all, in order for their to be a pattern, we'd need to look at more than one "example." Second of all, as has been pointed out, the private firm took over only two weeks before this problem was outed. Neither you nor Krugman has demonstrated causality between what you call privatization [if it was privatized then there would be no gov't involvement nor funding at all, so, by definition, it was not privatized] and the poor qualities. Until there is causality between privatization and something terrible happening you've not proven anything. That said, I'll repeat, I don't consider what was done to Walter Reed "privatization" and neither does anyone else here as far as I can tell, so you may wanted to start proving otherwise.

On Edit: Salon.com has been reporting on the conditions of WR for over a year...Well before this so-called privatization:
Link
Link
Link

Both of those quotes come from articles written in January of 2005.



It's a bureaucratic problem...Nothing to do with privatization.

CP

Well, maybe privatization had nothing to do with the problems at WRMC and maybe they did.

As was pointed out already, IAP has just taken over. However, they were not the only privatization effort in the last 6 years, and I think that a case for some privatization shenannigans can be made from this story that just came out over the weekend. It looks like everyone here missed it.....


SOURCE

Now, obviously, since this case stems from a group of companies that started this kickback scheme in 1999, any one administration is not to blame.

On the other hand, DaffyGirl has a point - when an administration or a government agency makes a decision not to actively support a given location like WR, oversight generally gets lax, and standards fall.

This should not ever be trhe case with our returning troops, especially those that are wounded. It may well be standard practice to bill patients for their meals, etc. However, it should not be.

And trying to ensure a profit to some private company at the expense of our troops borders on criminal, in my opinion. For crying out loud, we ask these people to sacrifice time from their families, their health, and in the extreme, their lives to protect this country. The very least we can do is make sure the medical equipment, personnel and facilities are the best we can provide upon their return.

If that costs more than what some private enterprise is capable or willing to provide, then so be it.

I think you need to take a step back when talking about privatization and really get away from the ideology and look at the practical more.

It is not that privatization is bad per se'- it is just inappropriate for the mission of some goverment agencies- that being, the profit motive is 180* out from the mission of what every you want to privatize.

for instance- is it a good idea to privatize the military? The courts? No? Why? Well, because the profit motive shouldn't influence military or judicial decisions- correct?

Medicine is one of those area- where, MOST of