Injured military veterans and private insurance

[UGAalum94]

This issue is not who is treating the combat injured vets: it's who is paying for it. I agree that the VA system has problems, but I'm not that shifting the cost of care to the private insurers is the way to go.

Apparently, in some instances, the VA treats the vets and then bill the private insurers for say, flu shots or some other non combat related issue. (Quote from linked article: "Currently, veterans' private insurance is charged only when they receive health care from the VA for medical issues that are not related to service injuries, like getting the flu.")

The proposal, which now I'm pretty sure was dead, was that the VA was going to bill the private insurers for the cost of treating issues related to combat injuries as well.

So the Vets would get all the crappy care associated with the VA, but private insurers would pay for it. If we were talking about getting private care and private insurance paid for it, it might still create problems for vets with serious injuries seeking private insurance (pre-existing conditions and all that crap), but it makes some sort of sense. Getting VA treatment for combat injuries and billing a private insurer makes zero sense to me.

It seems to be a total lose-lose to me.