Posted on 01/12/2019 10:08:06 AM PST by Theoria
Simple solution is to allow the vets to go to any hospital but the gov’t would lose control and that is something bureaucrats never want to give up.
Not so much...
Financial Assessments are not Required to be Updated Yearly
Enrolled Veterans are no longer required to provide their financial assessment on an annual basis if they had a current financial assessment on file as of March 24, 2014. This means Veterans can enjoy their VA health care benefits without worrying about having to submit updated income information to VA every year.
If the enrolled Veteran does not have a financial assessment on file as of March 24, 2014, the Veteran will be required to provide updated income information. Veterans may update their financial assessment when they visit their VA facility at their next appointment. Veterans may also update their information by submitting VA Form 1010EZR, which is available online, at their local VA medical center or by contacting 1-877-222-VETS (8387), to have the form mailed. This form is available online at https://www.1010ez.med.va.gov
https://www.va.gov/healthbenefits/cost/financial_assessment.asp
“The VFW, DAV and American Legion all support keeping the VA facilities and services.
Why don’t you?”
I only know about those things that have been made public about the VA and it’s “medical care.” I suppose there are VA facilities where good care is rendered, but there are also horror stories about vets being denied care to the point where some of them have lost their lives waiting to be served. I am also a person who believes that virtually nothing that the government does, has as it’s primary objective, to render superior service to the taxpayers. Quite the opposite, I see the bulk of government “workers” as a self-serving bunch whose primary objective ( usually through their union) to extract the maximum benefit from the taxpayer for their contributions. So much to say, government employment is an end to itself, a jobs program for the workers as opposed to being paid to do a job.
I don’t know why veterans organizations support the VA given that from what I gather, the “safety valve” now being offered vets is the opportunity to go to get medical care elsewhere and have the government pay for it.
My father was a Navy WWII vet. He died in the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, CA 40 years ago from cancer. He had been treated at Stanford until his insurance had run out, then he moved to the VA Hospital and was treated by the same Stanford doctors that he had been seeing. The VA care was excellent, so that is my personal experience with the VA. But that was again 40 years ago, and probably a very different time with respect to the VA. That said, I still favor getting completely rid of the VA and repurposing it’s facilities within the private sector, with the possible exception of those facilities specifically tasked with caring for war-related injuries. There is simply no rational reason to segregate a part of our population simply because they served in our military when it comes to general healthcare services.
VA Districts and Hospitals vary in accordance with their leadership.
Some Districts are at the very pinnacle of good care and service. The best the world has to offer. I cite the Norcal district as an example of that.
But I have heard of districts that are ripe for disbanding, then hanging all who work there.
Let’s address the bad ones, and leave the good ones to their good work.
I am being treated at MD Anderson for metastatic prostate cancer through the VA Choice program. I was approved within a week of applying. At the time, the Houston V.A. hospital had just two oncologists for the whole hospital.
When I was first approved, my private insurance was the primary coverage and the VA picked up the rest. Saved me $7-8,000/year for a couple of years.
Now that I’m on Medicare, it covers almost all the expenses and the VA Choice picks up the rest.
There's already a lot of abuse going on. They can't even keep a live doctor on staff in my town so I've been forced to request a transfer to a town 1.25 hours away for routine appointments. Talking to a doctor on a tv screen while having some low level nurse take my vitals is not what I consider a doctors appointment. The VA has serious problems. One big one is they can't be fired. No one should have that level of job security. It breeds mediocrity and bad attitudes.
It’s about damned time.
There have already been threats. It will be handled more discretely.
It’s not in CA, BTW.
Sure is a big difference in different areas.
I’m in a rural area and have a great doctor in a clinic half an hour away.
The hospital is an hour and a half away, which is tough. But heck, the closest private hospital is an hour away.
If a vet chooses private care this could be good.
Best to have the choice though.
I agree with it best to having a choice. The VA could downsize and where it doesn’t do well it could close shop and the vets get the care they need.
Based on IRS accumulated income 2 SS Checks and Navy Pension from 58-78 He makes to much money to qualify. Standard deductions short form. We owe nothing but standard deductions to deduct. Bar was set to high for medical out of pocket it can rarely be met. We just went through this 2 yrs ago when he got his hearing aids and dentures that were Service connected injuries.
And the Memphis VA Sucks as so many of them do. Technically he is Blue Water Navy and should come under the Agent Orange settlement as they handled the deserted Huey’s when bring out refugees and AMB during Frequent Wind In fact the Amb came out on his ship the USS Midway. Plus the heavy metal cleaning agents. The VA Rep did good doing the Dental and Hearing, Vision should have been included as he developed Retinitis that led to Retinal Atrophy that is now in Severe Glaucoma the Glaucoma doc wants to do surgery. No steroids, Cortisone’s or Predisone are allowed, not even allergy meds.
Follow Up - Last week someone called identifying herself as being with a congressional liasin with the White House. She told me she was responding to a letter “you sent to the White House” and she asked if I had been reimbursed for my out of pocket drug costs. I told her I had not and she told me someone would get in touch with me. I had given up 6 months ago.
Later that day the money was put in my checking account. On Monday and Tuesday I got calls from two other people wanting to make sure I had received the money.
After 18 months I wrote the White House. Six months after that I was reimbursed. SOMEONE lit a fire under some asses. I believe Trump has people whose job is to take care of veterans.
It’s like the efforts I put in to get the Iranian doctor’s study visa extended. It was extended because she was helping to save veterans’ lives. When high priced Philadelphia Lawyers told her that her case was hopeless yet she got an extension anyway, I’m convinced God and Trump were involved.
God, bless and protect President Trump.
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