Oh, wow, ThinkProgress did a 2006 article on the VA healthcare system.

And it is everything that you would expect it to be.  Hold on: let me screenshot this brilliance by Matthew Yglesias (with able assistance from Mark Kleiman and Philip Longman).  You know.  Just in case there’s a sudden server malfunction, or something.

VA-marker

Yes, brothers and sisters: once upon a time the Left was holding up the Veterans Affairs healthcare system as something that was absolutely awesome.  It was so awesome, in fact, that Yglesias thought that smart policy people should be sitting down and trying to figure out how to get non-veterans on it. But then again, this was back in 2006, when the government was still being run by Republicans (we didn’t actually hand over Congress until 2007, remember). Which logically means that, if Yglesias et al were right then, then clearly what happened to make everything worse was that we let Democrats start messing with things – and messing things up.

Like they do.

Via

Moe Lane

PS: By the way: socialized medicine sucks. Just in case nobody’s ever formally mentioned that to the Left, or anything: God knows that the Democrats certainly act like every piece of evidence supporting that statement is a complete surprise to them…

11 thoughts on “Oh, wow, ThinkProgress did a 2006 article on the VA healthcare system.”

  1. Moe, Obamacare was never about healthcare, it was about controlling people’s lives. As far as the Democrats are concerned, all of this is a success, since we see a massive expansion of government power.

    Their ultimate goal is government controlled healthcare, where government dictates every aspect of the healthcare system.

  2. “Their ultimate goal is government controlled EVERYTHING”
    .
    There, fixed it for you.

    1. I still have trouble wrapping my mind around that. I know its true, because I can see them push for it at every opportunity, but who could really want that? Has there ever been a movie or story where the government contolled everything and that was presented as a good thing?

      1. Just remember, their model for a good outcome is the Soviet Union – sure, it sucks if you’re a prole, but they assume they’re going to be part of the ruling cadre.

        1. I don’t know, following the Soviet model, once Hillary came to power, the Obama people would be in for some….unpleasantness. Tracking long term careers of the upper levels of Soviet politics is more a lesson to stay out of the upper levels of Soviet politics.

  3. Yglesias wasn’t right then either, the VA has always sucked. Fortunately Republicans have generally consistently ( if not strongly) pushed to reform the VA to try to make it better. They now seem to be pushing strongly to scrap it for something better.
    Whereas the Left has embraced the VA and all of its failures. Which is why they can’t blame it on Reagan that much.

    1. Whereas the Left has embraced the VA and all of its failures. Which is why they can’t blame it on Reagan that much.
       
      Of course they can! And they will.

  4. “At some point, you’d think @mattyglesias would get tired of being dumb and wrong.”

    To think that, you’d have to not be dumb like Matt.

    1. They’re SOL. The VA has been screwed up since before 1930 when the (hideously corrupt) Veterans Bureau was combined with the bureau managing the old soldiers’ homes and the other bureau at Interior handling pensions to form the VA. Even Omar Bradley couldn’t fix the VA after WWII.

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