This proves further that some VA staff are traitors who hates the Veterans they “serve”. To steal from those sick is disgusting. The VA system is sick and needs to be changed. Give the Veterans free medical chits and allow them to go where they want. Close the always, eternally corrupt, bloated, make-work VA system.
I am all for giving veterans a “Veterans Insurance Card”, that provides for health care coverage for non-service-related conditions they are eligible to receive benefits for, that picks up those benefits privately, at the same out-of-pocket cost to the Veteran as it would be at a VA facility.
That would relieve a majority of the work at all the major VA facilities because the majority of care being done at most of them is for non-service related conditions.
If the VA has any direct health care responsibility is in service related conditions. That should be the priority of the VA health services and the majority of what a VA health facility is there for.
Smaller bureaucracy, more focused mission on those most deserving of VA direct attention after leaving service, and likely cost savings on the care paid for with the “VA Insurance Card”. Actually, that card, and its funding ought to be interrelated with Medicaid, as that is the economic situation of many vets using the VA for general health care.