The Best Care Anywhere?

Ten years ago, veterans hospitals were dangerous, dirty, and scandal-ridden. Today, as Phillip Longman reports in the cover story of the current issue of the The Washington Monthly, they’re producing what is demonstrably the highest quality care in America.

The story of how and why the Veterans Health Administration became the benchmark for quality medicine in the United States promises to shift the terms of the debate about health policy in America. Longman argues that precisely because the VHA is a big government bureaucracy with a near life-time relationship with its patients, it has incentives for investing in prevention, disease management, electronic patient records, and other quality measures that are lacking in for-profit medicine.

Along with panelists Paul Glastris and Shannon Brownlee, Longman makes the case for expanding the VHA’s model of health care and offering it to all Americans who perform public service.

Participants

• Phillip Longman
  Schwartz Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
• Shannon Brownlee
  Schwartz Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
• Paul Glastris
  Editor in Chief, The Washington Monthly