Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- The world offers at least two pure systems of “socialized medicine,” the state-run variety that many Americans with private insurance assume they’d hate.
Cuba has one. The other is run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the agency that cares for ex-military personnel and their dependents, writes T.R. Reid in his timely and provocative book “The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care.”
The VA supervises hospitals, employs doctors, buys the medicine and pays the bills. Reid praises the program as “enormously popular” with patients.
“If this is un-American, why did we choose it for America’s military veterans?” asks Reid, a Washington Post correspondent and National Public Radio commentator.
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