VA Secretary: Nobody Gets Upset at Disney for the Long Lines, So Why Get Mad at the VA?
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald on Monday compared the length of time veterans wait to receive health care at the VA to the length of time people wait for rides at Disneyland, and said his agency shouldn’t use wait times as a measure of success because Disney doesn’t either.
“When you got to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? Or what’s important? What’s important is, what’s your satisfaction with the experience?” McDonald said Monday during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters. “And what I would like to move to, eventually, is that kind of measure.”…
The VA secretary said most veterans report being satisfied with their care and argued that the average wait time for a veteran seeking VA treatment is only a matter of days.
Allahpundit has the best comment:
VA secretary: You don’t judge your experience at Disneyland based on the wait times, do you?
If there was a chance you’d die while in line for Space Mountain, I’m thinking you might.
People are wondering on Twitter how long it’ll be before the VA introduces a Fastpass+ program for vets.
Let’s forget the fact that we’re talking about life and death here, and not an amusement park.
If you don’t like Disney, you have a choice, which includes any of several other amusement parks, or even staying home.
If you don’t like government-run health care, you have a choice: dying, or living without health care. Not much of a choice, really.
He’s a dipstick, but he expresses the government mentality well.
Secretary McDonald alleges his words were “taken out of context” or “misquoted” in 5. . . 4. . . 3. . . 2. . . .
JVW (05e1e2) — 5/23/2016 @ 4:06 pmhe’s a Republican
happyfeet (831175) — 5/23/2016 @ 4:08 pmWonderful how the Republicans have the same idiot big government mentality as the Democrats.
Helps explain Trump
Patterico (328df5) — 5/23/2016 @ 4:12 pmHe’s also a West Point graduate. So what? He’s a government bureaucrat who is tasked with defending a lazy and incompetent department. He was supposed to be cleaning house in his new department, but he seems to have lost interest.
JVW (05e1e2) — 5/23/2016 @ 4:17 pmy’all is not happy chewbaccas
happyfeet (831175) — 5/23/2016 @ 4:23 pm“None of the veterans who died while waiting for care filled out a survey claiming they were anything less than ‘Mostly Satisfied’ with their treatment.”
“Technically, the ones who died while waiting have stopped waiting, and we can indeed use days to measure the time spent.”
CayleyGraph (353727) — 5/23/2016 @ 4:44 pmWhat a effing disgrace this pos is.
mg (31009b) — 5/23/2016 @ 4:44 pmanyone zaphod would pick would be substandard,
narciso (732bc0) — 5/23/2016 @ 4:48 pmWait, Disneyland doesn’t factor in wait times for rides when determining customer satisfaction!?!?
TheNaBr (0c7c2f) — 5/23/2016 @ 4:59 pmIf people don’t care about wait times at Disneyland, why were they getting upset when some people were hiring people in wheelchairs to let them jump the lines?
malclave (4ddf38) — 5/23/2016 @ 5:10 pmAs a consumer, health care is not like a hamburger. The consumer requires lots of honest advice to make the best choices and that advice happens to very technical. When they simply are not getting that advice then the supply side is to blame.
Rodney King's Spirit (e2dd8e) — 5/23/2016 @ 5:11 pmAnd “wait times” are clearly a chilling effect on al consumers.
Rodney King's Spirit (e2dd8e) — 5/23/2016 @ 5:11 pmSo a man is not feeling well and he gets his wife to drive him to the doctor. The doctor examines him, then takes the wife aside and tells her: “Mrs. Smith, I’ve examined your husband thoroughly and I cannot find anything wrong with him. In my opinion, it’s all in his head. He only thinks he’s sick. Just take him home and be patient with him when he complains.” So the couple leaves. A couple of week later, the doctor happens to meet the wife in the elevator. He asks her, “And how is your husband feeling these days, Mrs. Smith?” She says, “Not so good, Doctor. Now he thinks he’s dead”.
nk (dbc370) — 5/23/2016 @ 5:13 pmyou know how much it cost to totally frack things up.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CiQvPPsUYAE0KXV.jpg:large
narciso (732bc0) — 5/23/2016 @ 5:36 pmDoes he know the IRS guy kosinek (or however u spell it)?
jb (9badd6) — 5/23/2016 @ 5:43 pmIf Disney doesn’t measure wait times, what are all those cute signs in the line about? (“From this point, you have 45 minutes to wait”, etc.)
KL (5efc0c) — 5/23/2016 @ 6:25 pmYou don’t want to go to Disneyland, anyway. It contains chemicals which cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm. For real, I’m not making it up, here’s just one of its many warning signs. http://themeparksushi.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Warning-sign-Disneyland.jpg And then, if the VA is your health provider, you’re in even deeper trouble.
nk (dbc370) — 5/23/2016 @ 6:38 pmso the tsa security director got bonuses, the head of the va went all fight club, the cdc is being starved of funds to feed the skydragon, is there any agency not in gross dereliction of their mandate?
narciso (732bc0) — 5/23/2016 @ 6:44 pmThis is an example of how corruptive government benefits can be.
An exchange last year with my Ohio FB friend. His wife is a vet, both have been active with the local Tea Party group. She needed heart surgery, was being treated at the VA Hospital near her, and had to wait several days, being bumped every day because of other cases that kept coming in, in more serious condition than she was. (The delays were medically legit, although perhaps more staff might have helped. Once she was operated on, she was quickly home and is now her normal farming girl self.)
During the wait, as he complained about the delays, I asked why she didn’t go to a different hospital–the Cleveland Clinic, for example is local for them and not exactly unknown for success with cardiac surgery. Were the VA surgeons (I asked) that good?
No, he answered, they seemed good but not good.
–Then why suffer with the VA?
kishnevi (9c9b54) — 5/23/2016 @ 7:03 pm–Because with the VA everything is free.
It would be great if someone at Disney came ou and said “yeah, we actually do measure wait times. Cuz, you know, we care about customer satisfaction and would prefer no one DIED in line.”
Edoc118 (05a689) — 5/23/2016 @ 7:03 pmThis jerk was once the CEO of Proctor & Gamble? Seriously?
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 5/23/2016 @ 8:56 pmThat’s a Prop 65 sign. Any business that even thinks there might be some harmful chemical within confines, no matter where on the property or who will actually be exposed or however it’s compounded is required to put that up. Do yourself a giant favor, and ignore them. Paranoia isn’t a great look on the state, and it doesn’t help you.
Bill H (971e5f) — 5/23/2016 @ 9:20 pmMy dad’s with VA. Fortunately, his treatment hasn’t fallen below lacklustre. Might have something to do with him being classifies as an Agent Orange victim. Luckily, when he needs to go to a hospital for whatever reason, we can go to Grossmont here in San Diego (one of the best hospitals in the area) and VA foots the bill.
Bill H (971e5f) — 5/23/2016 @ 9:25 pmIf you don’t like government-run health care, you have a choice: dying, or living without health care. Not much of a choice, really.
Or maybe you could buy some health care.
James B. Shearer (c3b4c2) — 5/23/2016 @ 9:28 pmI was making fun of Prop 65, Bill H. And I know vets who have their own doctors and use VA mostly for their medications.
nk (dbc370) — 5/23/2016 @ 9:48 pmYah, batteries in my sarc meter need changing. I twigged on your intent about 2 seconds after I posted. Sorry.
But my dad has doctors at VA. It isn’t just the meds for him. A health plan outside of VA would wipe him out. Like I said- he’s been pretty lucky. Many vets aren’t.
Bill H (971e5f) — 5/23/2016 @ 9:57 pmThat’s a pretty simple solution, James B. Shearer! Why didn’t I think of that?
Oh — maybe it’s because Obama and other economic interventionists fucked up the market so badly that you can’t buy anything these days. Could that be it?
Patterico (328df5) — 5/23/2016 @ 10:14 pm27 Oh — maybe it’s because Obama and other economic interventionists fucked up the market so badly that you can’t buy anything these days. Could that be it?
Really? If you don’t like VA care you have no other options at all? News to me.
James B. Shearer (c0f951) — 5/24/2016 @ 10:31 am#24 James B. Shearer,
How about buying a clue?
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 5/24/2016 @ 8:00 pmbtw, max hastings references the turpin in his latest tome, steve,
http://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/this-us-army-sergeant-started-the-korean-war-by-selling-out-to-the-soviets
snowden even phillip agee aren’t knew, by a country mile,
narciso (732bc0) — 5/24/2016 @ 8:25 pmThere’s a difference between wait times for something someone might enjoy, and something someone might find necessary. there’s adifference between wait times during a single day, and wait times of days, weeks and months for an appointment. and while satisfaction is maybe abetter metric than wait times, where does McDonald say taht taht metric is good?
Maybe it would be easier to claim improvement, and that the level of satisfaction is good, because there could be no hard and fast targets. You can say that X number of people scheduling appopintments mnust be seen within a certain amount of time, but how do hold employees to achieving levels of satisfaction? And that can be rigged, too. Like getting people who are unsatisfied to go somewhere else. Or tying it, or seeming to tie high ratings, to seeing doctors more often. Or asking different questions.
Sammy Finkelman (643dcd) — 5/25/2016 @ 10:38 am