The Veterans scandal shows where ObamaCare ends up

See The Government Health-Care Model. Editorial from the WSJ. Excerpts:

"As recently as November 2011, Paul Krugman praised the VA as a triumph of "socialized medicine," as he put it: "What's behind this success? Crucially, the V.H.A. is an integrated system, which provides health care as well as paying for it. So it's free from the perverse incentives created when doctors and hospitals profit from expensive tests and procedures, whether or not those procedures actually make medical sense.""

"the VA lacks the evil profit motive."

"a government system contains its own "perverse incentives," such as rationing that leads to treatment delays and preventable deaths,"

"inherent in a system that allocates resources by political force"

"All veterans are entitled to free preventative screenings, immunizations, lab services and EKGs. Most are required to pay little to nothing out of pocket"

"the only way the VA can provide universal, low-cost health care is by rationing. At the VA, this means long waiting lists"

"So it's no surprise that allegations are spilling out that VA facilities keep secret waiting lists to hide queues that exceed the government's targets. A retired doctor at a veterans hospital in Phoenix last month charged that staff concealed months-long delays for as many as 1,600 veterans, allegedly resulting in 40 preventable deaths."

"The VA has consistently boasted in its performance reviews that more than 90% of patients receive appointments within 14 days of their "desired date." Yet according to the IG's 2012 report, the measures "had no real value" because the VA "does not have a reliable and accurate method of determining whether they are providing patients timely access" to care."

"VA officials claim backlogs are due to difficulty hiring and retaining staff, but that's another problem endemic to government health care. Compensation is often too low to attract doctors,"

"Last year the IG reported that the VA had given $1.02 million in September 2011 to a medical center in Columbia, South Carolina, for private colonoscopies to address a backlog of 2,500 patients. But in January 2012—by then the wait list had grown to more than 3,800"

"The Columbia VA referred only 100 patients between January and March 2012 to outside physicians and spent just $275,000 of the $1.02 million on private colonoscopies. Yet in-house colonoscopies decreased."

"Maintaining long backlogs can help VA centers procure more funding."

"The inevitable liberal defense—it's coming, we guarantee it—will be that Congress isn't spending enough money. Yet as the nearby charts show, funding soared by 106% to $57.3 billion in 2013 from $27.7 billion in 2003. Yet over the same period the number of VA patients has increased by only 30%."