Well, in their defense, there's already budget issues. If every doctor could prescribe whatever they wanted to any vet and the VA would pay for it, not only would it cause the VA to have no money, it would also cause a lot of docs to hunt down not necessarily necessary meds to give vets (not to mention, hunt down vets to give them to) because the VA would cover the meds and the vet would pay the outside doc, earning them easy money. So, it might cause more issues than it solves. Though in my case, I have an awesome doctor who was able to pull me out of the pits of ... when the VA and Army couldn't, so I definitely have a great doc! But not everyone out there is as good or as ethical.

Though in an ideal world, you are 100% right! Of course, in an IDEAL world, vets wouldn't need outside docs. lol