Another Veterans Day brought another round of lamentations about the Department of Veterans Affairs and promises to fix it.
President-elect Donald Trump promised to do so throughout the campaign. Paul Rieckhoff, founder and CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, is skeptical. Veterans are “used to big promises and disappointing results,” he says. “Fixing the VA might be one of the biggest challenges for President Trump. Every president says they’re going to do it, yet we’ve still got a VA with backlogs and massive problems.”
If Trump tries to fix the VA the same way other presidents have, he will fail. But there is a way he can succeed.
Trump’s predecessors failed because they tried to work within a model of top-down, centralized economic planning. The Veterans Health Administration is America’s only purely government-run health system. Its closest analogue is probably the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. The VHA even produces the same results as the NHS: chronic shortages and long waits for care alongside idle and wasted resources, instances of horrific care, and often good care, you know, if you can get it.
Presidents can and have fixed such problems temporarily by moving resources from here to there, or investing in some new system. It never lasts, though. The VHA is a socialist enterprise. Unlike a market system, it has no price mechanism or competitive pressures that automatically fix such problems when they re-emerge. And not only do they always re-emerge, Congress usually takes forever to get off its duff. If Trump retains the VA’s basic structure, he will join a long line of presidents who have failed our nation’s veterans.
How to Privatize the VA
Trump can distinguish himself from other presidents by working with Congress to create a system of veterans benefits that fixes problems automatically. Here’s how.
First, the federal government should increase military pay sufficient to enable workers to purchase–from private insurers at actuarially fair rates–a package of life, disability, and health benefits equivalent to what the VA provides. Benefits would kick in as soon as they leave active duty and cover veterans’ service-related disabilities or illnesses for life.
Second, having privatized the insurance component of veterans benefits, the federal government should then privatize the delivery component. It should incorporate the VHA as a private company and issue shares to active-duty personnel and veterans based on length of service or other criteria.
You read that right. Military personnel and veterans would literally own the VHA, including its many hospitals and other facilities. Privatizing the VA would both increase the pay of active-duty personnel, and create a massive wealth transfer to active-duty personnel and veterans. Veterans would be able to receive medical care from health systems owned and operated by veterans, for veterans.
Third, the federal government should give current veterans vouchers to purchase insurance and medical care from the insurers and health systems of their choice, including the new veteran-owned and ‑operated systems.
Privatization Means Better Benefits for Veterans
Privatization would improve the quality of veterans’ benefits immeasurably.
The federal government promises veterans’ benefits to military personnel once they leave active duty. Only it’s not an explicit promise. And Congress doesn’t fund it. As a result, Congress can–and does–renege on that commitment.