Posted on 08/28/2008 9:34:50 AM PDT by B4Ranch
I’m a disabled vet and have never re-entered a VA hospital since my last medical review. First of all there are plenty of folks who need it worse and second the care isn’t all that great.
Save the money for those returning from war and their care. Let the others get a job and pay for their insurance.
Universal health care does not work.
Wow, what a biased steaming pile. Exactly how is giving “vouchers to receive care at private, for-profit hospitals” the same as “seeking to cut off” health care? Talk about spin!
But we are supposed to believe that Obama will fix it? He’s already said he will gut the military as he favors a KGB style organization to focus on internal opportunities.
seriously....am I missing something here??? if you have non-combat wounds you get to see the doctor of your choice and have the bill paid for you???
I’m sure many vets are quite pleased at this development....
My best friend (on the train to work anyways), has been working for the VA for 2 decades, has seen it through the bad times, and the good. He has said this to me for as long as I have known him (10 years). While the VA hospital system is quite good these days, many vets hate the commute. Already, many are “farmed out”, so to speak, to private healthcare. Sounds like he is just looking to expand this system already in place.
“Veterans are also skeptical of McCain’s plans because as a senator, he has repeatedly voted against fully funding veterans’ health care.”
Many also thought McCain would be a champion of the possible POWs during the 1993 POW/MIA hearings. He was the opposite, doing everything he could to discredit witnesses who had evidence of possible live POWs, and doing everything he could to prevent the declassification of evidence of live POWs. He seemed more interested in disposing of the issue and granting diplomatic recognition to Vietnam.
Not sure about the details of his proposals related to the VA, but McCain is no champion of the veteran.
I’m not a veteran. But if I had cyst to remove, and had the choice of driving 100 miles to a VA hospital, or getting a voucher and having it done down the street by the local doctors, I’d chose the latter.
And I wouldn’t worry about how my not driving 100 miles to the overcrowded VA hospital might effect their budget.
“Save the money for those returning from war and their care. Let the others get a job and pay for their insurance.”
So, you’re fine with abandoning the promise made to service members for at least 50 years, that VA health care would be available to them after active service?
More likely, if any money was saved, it’d go to more welfare type programs.
There's another side to the issue that's not covered. VA healthcare is NOT free healthcare for all who are enrolled. I'm enrolled and pay a portion of the medical expense because of income.
On the surface I have no issue with what I see here, but don't understand how it would be significantly different that what is available now, except it would free up the VA clinics and hospitals to focus on war-related injuries.
The other issue is availability of public healthcare. As mentioned, I have non-combat related illness which includes a history of stroke, heart attack and bypass operations. Yet I can get quite good healthcare on the market without pre-qualification, at $62.00/month. And that includes medication. My co-pay is $10 per doctor visit, $25 per emergency room visit, $35 per outpatient procedures such as CT's, and $100 per hospital visit. The only qualification is that one must already be a Medicare recipient. In fact, this plan replaces Medicare as the payer.
I bet the VA is very good about hiring veterans.
I bet the VA also goes out of its way to have good relations with the various veteran’s organizations.
Veteran’s organizations may therefore feel it is in their interest to protect the VA as an institution, instead of just looking out for what is best for veterans as a whole.
This is the same argument the teachers unions put forth against vouchers for parents to send their kids to the schools of their choice. No agenda here.
This is a bogus story. McCain outlined his health program before the American Legion. He essentially refuted every point made against him in this article. He promised not to reduce the VA system, not block pending plans to expand the sytstem, increase expenditures on health care for veterans, and supplement care by providing veterans with a card that would allow them to use local facilities at VA expense to assist those vets who are not located conveniently to VA facilities. I am not a big McCain fan, but on this issue I trust him.
This is such a biased article, it almost leaves me gasping. First of all, giving vouchers for veterans so that they can obtain health care locally instead of driving 200 miles for a 15-minute visit? Good idea! Giving vouchers for private care will result in NOT a single vet being delayed from obtaining medical care; just the opposite will happen.
Boy, this writer has such an agenda.
I have advocated exactly that for years. Veterans would receive MUCH better care and they would be closer to home in most cases.
“So, you’re fine with abandoning the promise made to service members for at least 50 years, that VA health care would be available to them after active service?”
yes aside from service connected injuries. Government run health care does not work. Save the resources for those coming off active duty and who really need the care.
“More likely, if any money was saved, it’d go to more welfare type programs.”
Thats where Obama plans to spend it. He’ll give it to druggies and leave vets outside in the rain.
‘I bet the VA also goes out of its way to have good relations with the various veteran’s organizations.”
Not really, take their record of using Service Disabled veteran owned businesses. The VA uses a NASA contract for all of its IT contracts. They will not use a contract set up specifically for service disabled vet company’s.
Nor can new companies get on those existing NASA contracts.
As a Service Disabled Vet business owner the VA won’t even take the time to speak with me about alternatives. They will only tell you to call one of the companies on the NASA contract.
Very recently a new bill was proposed to allow the VA to open this up. It may get thru the system in a couple years.
The VA has a 7% spending goal for these companies and are not even close to meeting that requirement.
My thoughts exactly. If anyone wants to see UHC in action go to a VA or Military hospital and prepare for a long wait. My father (WW 2, Korea, & Vietnam vet) fought the red tape from 1965 until he died in 1990.
People don’t understand the endless crap they put patient through just to receive basic care. As his dependent child trying to get basic care was an all day event.
These places are notorius for losing/misplacing records, scheduling visits 2-4 months out, etc...
I have always beleived that if they did away with the VA medical system and gave our vets vouchers for service that they and the country would be better served. the public doesn’t understand that there is not a VA hospital in every city and the time and expense it cost just to go to travel to one only to find out that what you thought was going to happen didn’t...
On the face of it I don’t see a problem with it. The government committed to providing for the veteran disabled while in the service and this certainly does that. The fact that it may be in a private rather than a veteran’s hospital should make no difference.
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