Viewpoints: Veteran Healthcare

Viewpoints: Veteran Healthcare

Greg McArdle

HUM/115: Critical Thinking in Everyday Life

September 27, 2017

Dr. Vernon Wooldridge

Viewpoints: Veteran Healthcare.

Healthcare for Veterans, especially within the VA (Veteran Affairs) hospitals, has been a hot topic recently. It has been stated that there has been a gross mismanagement of resources, causing lengthy wait times and manipulated schedules (Berlatsky, 2016). Further, it is argued that VA hospitals have the best model for healthcare and also better oversight (Longman, 2017).

VA hospitals do not make any revenue having a patient come back, over and over again, for the same issue. This simple guideline makes it more profitable for the VA to be timely and accurate with their diagnosis and treatment of patients. The addition of oversight, IG (Inspector General) and the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, adds to the quality of care that a patient receives when in a VA hospital (Longman, 2017).  Unfortunately, the VA acts with little transparency and accountability when it comes to improving patient care. With the lack of transparency, VA patients were waiting too long to be seen by doctors, causing their issues to become worse, and in some cases, resulted in death. (Berlatsky, 2016).

In Longman’s viewpoint, he used clarity to give examples and elaborates on how he came to his opinion on the current state of Veteran Healthcare. He also had a fairly biased opinion, considering he was comparing VA healthcare to other healthcare provided to civilians in his article. As for Berlatsky, he used precision in his piece, citing an official study that was conducted at the request of the President of the United States. I would say that Berlatsky was lacking breadth. He was only writing in the point of view of the study that was conducted.