Making veterans pay

You'd think that if you were considering a plan to make veterans charge treatments for service-related injuries to private insurance, you'd also want to be able to explain how the plan would work, to quell fears that service men might get shafted. Unfortunately, there's no information in this article explaining what exactly the administration is thinking. "Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance." It goes on from there to explain that almost nobody in Congress would support anything like this. Veterans groups are also opposed.

This is all sort of telling, though. Imagine that the administration's greater health care plan contained something--a subsidy perhaps--for retired veterans who buy private insurance, such that they'll pay no more out of pocket for treatment under the new system than they would have in the past. That's at least a theoretical possibility, but even if it were, the plan would be dead on arrival. Why? Because veterans know what congressmen know what we all know, that private health insurance, particularly on the individual market, usually sucks. Indeed, it's typically worse than veterans need and deserve. But there are plenty of honorable people in America who aren't veterans (or government employees) and yet many of the very same people who loudly oppose this ambiguous plan as an abuse of our veterans would be perfectly happy to see all other Americans forced into such a system. Because America's not ready for single payer universal health care, unless it's for veterans.