May 29, 2014

Two Brief Notes About the VA Scandal

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I have a couple of things related to the VA scandal that I wish everyone would get straight on:

  • There is a difference between (a) the backlog in initial applications for VA benefits and (b) wait times for appointments at VA hospitals. They are completely different things with completely different roots. Don’t slide confusingly between the two in a single story.
  • You should always try to compare the performance of the VA to private sector care. Saying that the average wait time for non-urgent appointments is 23 days tells us nothing. Is that longer or shorter than it is elsewhere? Ditto for treatment mistakes, breadth of service, availability of pharmaceuticals, etc. All large organizations have large numbers of problems. That’s inevitable. The only way to judge them properly is to compare them to other large organizations doing the same thing.

That’s all for now. I might have more later.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

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