The VA works pretty well for most Veterans at a reasonable cost to the tax payer.
In my view dismantling the system is just another attack on the military by the left and far to many on the right.
Sorry Joe but you and I will have to disagree. I joined the ARMY in 1969 was wounded in 1971 and discharged in 1972. So far the only time I’ve been in a VA was to take my ex wife to work on a few days that the roads were iced up. She still works for the VA and my sister and brother in-law have both retired from the VA. While I have no personal dealing with the VA I do have a pretty good understanding of it’s operations and it is an abused system by both the patients and the employee’s.
My brother in-law receives 81 thousand dollars a year and my sister 58 thousand a year, my ex makes a little over 80 thousand as an RN. Before my ex went to work for the VA she was a charge nurse at a nursing home making 60 thousand taking care of 122 patients. She had 4 halls and one LVN and 2 aids for each hall, she now has 2 halls with 1 RN 2 LVN’s and 4 aids per hall and has never had more than 30 patients total. Most of her patients are Addicts, alcoholic’s and people being treated for non service related problems.
With that said, my new wife is the ER Director at the local private hospital here in West Texas where she gets VA transfer patients in daily. The local VA just sends them out if there’s a real medical problem that needs to be addressed. They have no ER and no ability to handle emergency’s yet they did put in a new helo pad out front that so far has only been used once by a transfer crew that walked across the street to Long John Silvers for lunch.
Shut them down and give the VETS ID that gives them care at any hospital they walk into so they don’t have to travel 40 to 70 miles just to find treatment and stop just feeding them drug’s! They are a disgrace to VETS with service related injuries and nothing more than a bucket for those that feed off of them.
“The VA works pretty well for most Veterans at a reasonable cost to the tax payer”.
I used to work in VA and been a patient in the VA for 23 years now. Some of the best healthcare in the country is the VA Medical System, especially the ones that work hand-in-hand with a civilian Healthcare University. Of course not all VAs are lucky enough to be attached to a top-rate medical university. Then you have smaller VAs all over the country that struggle to keep up with the neverending flow of new veteran patients from these neverending wars in the Middle East. New vets take priority, old farts like me go to the back of the line. But I accept that. I am used to “hurry up and wait”. Learned it in the military. The VA has some employees and most are overworked. I salute every one of them, especially direct healthcare providers. I’m getting fed up with all the “experts” like Hannity and the rest piling on the VA night after night. They need to concentrate on that traitor Bergdahl. And the VA has always sent vets to an outside provider (and paid for it), if they can’t do the job. This is nothing new.
“In my view dismantling the system is just another attack on the military by the left and far to many on the right.”
So from what you say, you are willing to continue to be like an “abused wife.” and accept substandard care? For me, it’s sad to understand that you won’t fight for what should be your right as a veteran. And I surely hope that you are able to stay healthy in spite of the VA.