Letters to the Editor
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Support The Troops Indeed
The people of this country must oppose any effort to privatize veterans' access to the current system, and support - post-Walter Reed, and post-Iraq and Afghanistan - a complete and legitimate political reform of sixty-year old polices on disabilities, care, and pensions.
On the whole, the VA works fairly well, in the day-to-day sense of giving care. It's a large hospital system, actually the largest in the world. Unfortunately, due to the coming crush of returning troops from current conflicts, demand is going to go up.
The American people allowed these wars to happen; the American people must do right by veterans. That's the deal.
These companies standing in line to profit from this system - or steer it to other "Blackwater" contractors - must not be allowed to diminish the use of effective government health facilities by veterans. Ideological "enablers" to the contractors shriek - over and over, year in and year out - about the dangers of "socialized medicine," aiming to destroy the system altogether.
The fact is the VA system is a working model for better health care for many Americans who do not now have it.
Tell the truth.
Keep the hacks at bay.