I agree with Grandpa Shooter. I am a retired military disabled Gulf War/OEF/OIF vet, and really didn't want to use the local VA hospital if I could avoid it due to the perceived stigma of that care system. However, after getting my disability rating and experiencing issues with TriCare and Physician's Plus, I decided to give the former a try. Obviously, the Walter Reed fiasco injected a lot of scrutiny and money into the flagging VA system - for better or worse. The care and attentiveness of my local VA hospital is somewhat staggering to me, and that's having retired as a career aviator with flight surgeon privileges. They're courteous, thank their vets profusely, and tell me not to feel guilty for using the service, having given them 20+ years of my life for the nation. However, the current influx of Iraq and Afghanistan vets is indeed putting a strain on VA resources, particularly now that they're offering 2 years' free healthcare to returning vets from those theatres, regardless of whether they have a disability rating or not. That costs money, even if the WWII vets aren't dying off soon enough to make the difference.
They're building a satellite pharmacy and outpatient center nearby for the extra influx of vets. I'm reluctantly going in for surgery over the next couple of weeks, and during my consults the other day, I was pleasantly surprised to see more "younger" vets in the waiting rooms - for a while it was rare to see even a 40-something vet like myself in what was jokingly referred to by my sister as a geriatric hospital. That's a good sign, IMHO.