Construction crews work on the Veterans Affairs hospital in Aurora on Dec. 10, 2014. (Brent Lewis, Denver Post file)
Re: “Cost of Aurora veterans hospital leaps to $1.73 billion,” March 18 news story.
In the life of many projects, there comes a time when hard decisions must be made. The Veterans Affairs hospital in Aurora is one of these.
To be told that another $830 million will be needed to complete the work is an affront to common sense. And, given the track record of this hospital, there is no guarantee that even this amount of extra money will be enough.
The only sensible solution is to stop construction immediately, abandon the project and sell the existing land and structure to Children’s Hospital Colorado for $1 (assuming that they will take it).
Guy Wroble,Denver
This letter was published in the March 21 edition.We owe America’s veterans the best possible medical care. Let’s roll the VA and Tricare into the Medicare system — without the deductibles and co-pays for vets — allowing them to seek the best possible medical and psychiatric care available in the communities where they live, while achieving cost efficiencies the VA is not delivering.
If you ask most folks on Medicare, it is — all things considered — a pretty good medical system, and it does a much better job with cost containment than the private sector, while allowing patients to seek care with private-sector medical professionals.
John W. Thomas,Fort Collins
This letter was published in the March 21 edition.I propose that we enroll all veterans in the Cadillac health care plan that our elected officials enjoy at our expense. Veterans certainly have earned and deserve such exceptional care. We then could switch our elected officials to the VA system for their health care, and by doing so it would be fixed very quickly.
Seriously, the only apparent effective solution to me is to abolish the VA health care system altogether. It is absolutely obvious that the VA, like so many of our modern, progressive federal agencies, is broken beyond the point of salvage.
Our veterans truly deserve to receive the very best we have to offer, not the “rotten to the core” tragedy that the VA administration has become.
Shame on us all for ever allowing serving our veterans to degrade to such a place as this.
Chuck Lawson,Greenwood Village
This letter was published in the March 21 edition.While all who have been involved in this fiasco (a complete and ignominious failure) are gnashing their teeth over how to build the new VA hospital, I think a more pertinent question is how are they going to operate and finance this behemoth?
Charles Connor,Highlands Ranch
This letter was published in the March 21 edition.
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