Another data point against single-payer healthcare

Megan McArdle points out another datum on whether nationalizing the U.S. healthcare system will actually provide the touted cost savings and quality improvements:

. . . here's the thing: Army hospitals have all the advantages that single-payer advocates love about the VA. They're unified. There's no profit incentive — indeed, the doctors are on quite low salaries. They have great incentives for preventive care. They certainly don't have any profit motive to provide bad care. So why did Walter Reed suck? And what guarantees that the VA is the system we'll follow, rather than the multiple other dysfunctional government systems everyone hates?

Bureaucracies are really good at doing bureaucratic things. Delivering healthcare services has a bureaucratic side — like almost anything else nowadays — but it's not the core functionality of the system. But it will quickly become the core function of the system if it is converted to a single-payer model.