Sorry, Ben, you are dead wrong to put the VA under DOD.
1. DOD is about winning wars. They want weapons and weapons systems that cost in the megabucks. They will starve hospitals to devise weapons and to train our military. They are right. Generals SHOULD be concerned with winning wars. That's why you don't put them in charge of treatment of FORMER military.
2. The VA is a distinct budget. They have those who campaign for their money in the halls of Congress. If DOD were doing the arguing for money, they would argue more strongly on the side of weapons and training.
Carson is wrong.
Veterans, of all groups in the USA, should have their own special advocates, their own special budgets, and access to specialized health care.
None of this should be taken to mean that the VA is well run. It isn't. It's full of waste, fraud, and abuse. It should be cleaned up.
Who of the candidates concerned with veterans is the best at firing people and not going along to get along?
Trump
Cruz
Why, when people look at the size of government, do politicians always look at injuring veterans as one of their first and best options?
Sorry, Ben, you are dead wrong to put the VA under DOD.
1. DOD is about winning wars. They want weapons and weapons systems that cost in the megabucks. They will starve hospitals to devise weapons and to train our military. They are right. Generals SHOULD be concerned with winning wars. That’s why you don’t put them in charge of treatment of FORMER military.
2. The VA is a distinct budget. They have those who campaign for their money in the halls of Congress. If DOD were doing the arguing for money, they would argue more strongly on the side of weapons and training.
Carson is wrong.
Veterans, of all groups in the USA, should have their own special advocates, their own special budgets, and access to specialized health care.
None of this should be taken to mean that the VA is well run. It isn’t. It’s full of waste, fraud, and abuse. It should be cleaned up.
Who of the candidates concerned with veterans is the best at firing people and not going along to get along?
Trump
Cruz
A new poll just came out showing Carson and Trump tied in Iowa at 23%. With the remarks about getting rid of the VA system, instead of improving it, he has reached his high water mark. What a dumbass thing for him to say.
why do small government Conservatives always exempt bloated military budget from any cut whatsoever. Fake Conservatives want big government just like Liberals just different spending priority for departments. VA should be Pentagon responsibility and the only thing they do is providing VA with a health saving account, in which they could shop around
Carson’s seems to be a nice guy, but this idea sucks. I’ll vehemently disagree with him on this one.
Devil’s advocate here. Dr. Carson has practiced medicine in the private sector for decades, and has achieved excellence. If a man with his background looks at the VA system and says, “I think I know a better way to serve the vets...” I am going to pay attention.
If he were commenting on how to run the Space Agency, for example, he would be on less firm ground.
I have to agree with you.
No one ever seems to look at welfare, WIC, Section 8, food stamps, “0bamaphones” or, according to the Heritage Foundation, the numerous agencies that overlap in function.
And heaven forbid if you even breathe the suggestion that Social Security should be reformed, simply to make it run better!
I am in favor of fixing the VA so it can help veterans.....something that is is not doing so such as the VA hospitals. In the meantime, I would temporarily have VA applicants be allowed to go to any hospital that honors Medicade/Medicare. VA hospitals are not helping vets in a timely fashon at all and many are not getting care. This would be a short term fix until the VA is righted.
I’m a veteran of 8 years (1968-76), and I can see some of his points. I never have cottoned much to being shuffled out of active duty off to the VA to complete the promises made to veterans.
I do know that active military hospitals don’t care all that much about numbers and disposition (in my experience, mind you) in terms of letting that affect the care they give..
No one can tell me the VA ever had, has, or will have that dedication.
And while we’re at it, a separate Federal agency, separate budget, separate administrator, doctors, nurses and infrastructure doesn’t comfort me given what I know of my 66 years of being alive. I’d trust a military doctor or nurse with my life. I am not so sure about VA anything.
Just two cents from a dumbass country boy with a pea brain.
You are spot on with your post here.
Carson is getting too wrapped in ‘wonkishness’ on this subject.
-— Veterans, of all groups in the USA, should have their own special advocates, their own special budgets, and access to specialized health care. -—
Let them compete with private hospitals and then —and only then— will they finally improve.
The VA should simply be a board with a budget, giving health insurance vouchers to servicemen, and extra money to wounded vets to spend at the hospital of their choice.
I think Carson is a decent man with some decent views.
Retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson...
Folks, this guy was a good neurosurgeon. That ranks him on a scale of 1 to 10 in executive experience, a 3 or 4.
In general this means he had an office with five to ten employees. Even then he may have hired an office manager.
Is he truly qualified to be president?
Just holding decent idea does not make one presidential.
Why, when people look at the size of government, do politicians always look at injuring veterans as one of their first and best options?
...
I read the article and I came away with a totally different impression. If the way we care for veterans is reformed for the better, I don’t think it would be a drag on the DOD at all.
The routine care would be done by vouchers or savings accounts at regular facilities.
Carson is herded by the party insiders. Same with Walker etc. All prepaid.
Veterans are not military ...theyre private citizens, unattached to the government as soldiers are..
Why do we need a VA hospital next to the Cleveland Clinic? In Columbia, Missouri there is an old VA hospital next to a state of the art MIZZOU hospital. All these hospital do is photo ops for politicians at grand opening ribbon cutting ceremonies. After that, they serve no purpose.
Veterans should be issued a veterans health insurance card and be allowed to go to any hospital that takes medicare medicaid. The VA system could then be absorbed into other entities or become PTSD wards or something
This is purely anecdotal but my wife worked with a woman who's husband was a surgeon, in the Navy, who worked at the Portsmouth VA Hospital, I think it's Called a Naval Medical Center now, but she said that according to her husband half the Dr's at the hospital were some of the finest most caring physicians and surgeons he's ever known and about half were pond scum who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near our Vets and service members and their families.