Until Americans feel better about the quality of care offered at Veterans Affairs hospitals, this won't happen.
A relatively-recent YouGov poll[1] says that 59% of US veterans would not feel comfortable with members of their family being treated by the VA. However, Fox News is probably a better source for the relevant public sentiment about this[2].
If the left in the US wants to expand government-run healthcare, they need to tackle this credibility problem. I don't know why Democrats (esp. ones like Rep Moulton) don't make this a bigger deal and why in the Obama era, they kept voting down bills[3][4][5] to reform the VA. Yes, there is a trade-off around maintaining the ironclad protections for federal employees' jobs, but that is a trade that seems to make less and less sense. It leaves an organised constituency unhappy with them while the message, "we aren't willing to reform a government agency in the name of providing better health care, even to a highly electorally-photogenic group".
Medicare, on the other hand, is extremely popular, and has been forever. And, wouldn't you know it, folks who have health care covered by the military/VA seem to think the health care system is working well for them, too.
While, we are at it, Indian Health Service is also a US government health care provider. Since its now July, the documentary "Don't get sick after June"[1] is a bit more timely. I do question people's logic that if the government is so poor at providing health care to Veterans and Native Americans, how they can scale it and get it right for everyone. It doesn't matter how other governments have done it as we are talking about the USA.
A relatively-recent YouGov poll[1] says that 59% of US veterans would not feel comfortable with members of their family being treated by the VA. However, Fox News is probably a better source for the relevant public sentiment about this[2].
If the left in the US wants to expand government-run healthcare, they need to tackle this credibility problem. I don't know why Democrats (esp. ones like Rep Moulton) don't make this a bigger deal and why in the Obama era, they kept voting down bills[3][4][5] to reform the VA. Yes, there is a trade-off around maintaining the ironclad protections for federal employees' jobs, but that is a trade that seems to make less and less sense. It leaves an organised constituency unhappy with them while the message, "we aren't willing to reform a government agency in the name of providing better health care, even to a highly electorally-photogenic group".
[1] https://today.yougov.com/news/2014/05/21/veterans-administra...
[2] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/07/16/gibson-va-has-los...
[3] http://capuano.house.gov/e-updates/eu2016-09-16.shtml
[4] http://capuano.house.gov/e-updates/eu2015-07-31.shtml
[5] http://capuano.house.gov/e-updates/eu2014-08-01.shtml