Making Use of the huge VA Hospital Overcapacity: Expand Access to Reduce Costs

Food for thought! Will President Trump close or sell some of the excess VA hospitals?

I am not even sure it has been really necessary for the VA to run their own hospitals! How different are war injuries from e.g. shooting injuries in the US? To finance and support research and/or training of doctors for war injuries would probably suffice.

"The Veterans Affairs (VA) health-care system was developed to finance and deliver hospital care to servicemen injured in the world wars. Since the World War II era, the veteran share of the nation’s population has plummeted and shifted away from large northeastern cities. The VA, however, maintains almost the same 170 major hospitals. These facilities now treat only a third as many patients as similar-size private hospitals. ..."

Making Use of VA Hospital Overcapacity: Expand Access to Reduce Costs | Manhattan Institute

U.S. Veterans Suicides Are Too High

Posted: 11/11/2019

This is a very shocking and sad reminder that way too many U.S. veterans commit suicide. 

“45,390 American adults died from suicide in 2017, including 6,139 U.S. Veterans” that every 7th suicide with in a year is committed by a veteran. This translates into about 17 such suicides on every day of the year.

“The number of Veteran suicides exceeded 6,000 each year from 2008 to 2017.” that is a total of at least 60,000 veterans who died by suicide over the past 10 years

Sources (S):

1. 2019 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report