Veterans are calling on Rep. Ken Buck to change his mind about funding the partly finished VA hospital in Aurora. (Craig F. Walker, Denver Post file)
Re: “Veterans to Rep. Ken Buck: Save our VA hospital in Aurora,” March 25 news story.
Freshman Congressman Ken Buck has shown considerable backbone by standing up to the rest of the Colorado congressional delegation and questioning the very dubious wisdom of continuing to send our tax dollars down the “rat hole” that is the Veterans Affairs hospital under construction in Aurora. Congressman Buck has my thanks and admiration for his principled stand.
In a March 25 letter to the editor, Dr. Rick Cunningham, who worked at three Veterans Affairs hospitals, labels VA hospitals as horribly inefficient and wasteful. It’s a very scary look at what a single-payer health care system would look like.
Why should we spend another nickel, except to shut down the entire VA health care system?
Chuck Lawson,Greenwood Village
This letter was published in the March 28 edition.Letter-writer Rick Cunningham is mistaken in his beliefs about both the Veterans Affairs system and single-payer health care.
The VA is not a single-payer system, mainly because not all people who serve in our military are even eligible for VA care. Much of the waiting that Dr. Cunningham decries is due to the efforts made simply to prove eligibility. Furthermore, in its efforts to contain costs, the VA struggles to compete with salaries that are paid to doctors in the private sector, which hampers its efforts to recruit and retain doctors. Wait times happen in the private sector, also; make no mistake. If we truly had a single-payer system in our country, not only would eligibility for care be a moot question, but all of our difficulties related to profit-driven medicine would end.
David Iverson,M.D., Denver
This letter was published in the March 28 edition.I’ve noted the daily pros and cons of the Aurora VA hospital debacle, as expressed in the letters column. Sure, it’s an obscene construction figure now at $1.73 billion. However, for comparison purposes, the Navy is currently building a nuclear aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford, pegged at $12.9 billion and expected to rise. Another carrier is also in the works. At that rate, Congress could build six VA hospitals and have money left over.
President Eisenhower in his 1961 farewell address warned of a military-industrial complex. Do we have our priorities straight? Was Ike spot-on in 1961, and is what he said still relevant today?
Gene Sabatka,Arvada
This letter was published in the March 28 edition.
Submit a letter to the editor via this form or check out our guidelines for how to submit by e-mail or mail.
