Posted on 03/02/2020 3:37:56 AM PST by Kaslin
The greatest thing I’ve ever found about the Army or the military in general is that we are all the same. Black, white, brown or striped. We are all the same. We were all people willing to give so much more than ourselves for a country we believe in.
The greatest disbelief I have is how, our single nation, treats our Veterans. No one I know signed up for healthcare, yet it was a guarantee. Yesterday I sat in the VA Hospital for five and a half hours. I sat next to a Marine missing his leg. I saw an 80’ish-year-old woman rolled in with nobody with her. In all of this time, I saw nobody, save for one male nurse, care about anyone. I heard jokes and I heard people go out for coffee. As I sat there for over 5 hours, I heard a complete lack of respect for our Vets. No vet I know of expects respect, but a certain degree of empathy for Veterans sitting in the hospital, I would think is required.
We have a broken system. People advocate for universal healthcare, yet, do they realize the flaws in the system they promote? If a U.S. combat Veteran can sit ignored for over five hours, if a Marine with one leg can sit unattended, if a woman in her eighties can be rolled in alone and left alone, can anybody believe in a universal healthcare system?
All Americans have given so much. I don’t presume that Veterans are any better or more deserving. Yet, when the premiere universal healthcare system in the country is so lacking, doesn’t that give any thinking person pause? I sat there for hours witnessing people in unspeakable pain virtually ignored. Where were the compassionate universal healthcare promises?
After nearly six hours sitting in the Washington, D.C. VA, I ripped the I.V. out of my arm and announced I was leaving. A nurse, whose attention I finally achieved, rushed over and screamed, “You’re bleeding!” I told her, “Yeah, I’ve bled before.” I bled for my country, I bled for my family, and all I or any Vet expects is a little respect.
We have a system where Veterans are left with a decision to die or to die trying to get help. That’s not a workable or even a satisfactory system. Veterans are dying every day waiting to get help. If the very system we use to help, or at the very least, expect to help Veterans cannot function, how can a universal government healthcare system function?
Before the country can even hope to move to universal healthcare, maybe they can try to fix the one they have. I’ve bled before. Now, I and all Vets expect to be treated with respect and dignity. Absent such, can anybody truly believe in a healthcare system run by a bloated and unaccountable federal government?
If we cannot expect, or demand, decency and dignity for Veterans, if humane treatment is beyond our capacity, what can we hope to achieve through a universal healthcare system?
The VA solicited me to sign up for health care saying it wanted to care for our female veterans. Then when I tried it said I was too wealthy. So, okay, why bug me to sign up? Shell game.
Yeah, was told the same thing. Retired so I have TriCare Standard for a few more months until I hit 65 and have to go the Medicare Part B route.
Ever since the courts ruled “Free Health Care for life” was a recruiting ploy and not a promise it’s be getting more expensive each year.
That's your problem right there Paul, VA benefits should only be available to veterans with service related injuries. As a stateside pencil pushing JAG officer, it's unlikely you even have issues related to your military service. The VA emergency waiting rooms are filled with normal people with normal ailments who are taking advantage of a service that should be reserved for vets with legitimate service injuries.
I know three individuals who use and abuse the VA hospital simply because they served two years in the Army decades ago and never had an employer that provided them with health insurance.....
I should also have said that career veterans earned the right to continued care following retirement......
I always thought that was the case. Even though just recently I found out I can go to the VA, I never would even though I don’t have insurance.
I started volunteering last October at the VA hospital in Wilmington, DE. I do escort service, taking fellow vets to their appointments. I’m impressed with the care there. I held out using the VA for years because I felt there were others who needed it more.
Now I need it and can’t say enough good things. Maybe this hospital is the exception, but I’ll take it.
“I never would even though I don’t have insurance”
I’ve read some joined the VA just to get a statement from the VA that they were covered thereby avoiding fines for not having healthcare under Obamacare
The author is correct. Sadly.
My father always got health insurance through his employer and continues to pay for his supplemental now that he’s well retired.
He never used the VA for anything thinking it was for wounded vets.
Man of a different era.
He's only correct because the system is over burdened by people taking advantage of the services being free...........
The writer is a lawyer who served 6 years as a JAG officer. When you look at his work bio, you have to wonder why he's using the VA anyway when he can easily afford his own insurance. The only reason I can think of is because he's a cheapass attorney.......
In my years of Med School and Residency I had first hand experience with 6 different VA hospitals. I could not, at first, understand for the life of my why they were uniformly so crappy. Then it dawned on me. The Mission of the VA is to “care for him who has born the battle”. In peacetime there are very few to sustain demand but the building have to maintain the infrastructure to rapidly increase the services the VA provides should a war erupt. So they intentionally create or tolerate crappy services so only those most indigent who have no other recourse present themselves.
Which is why when you rush a ProTime to the lab for a “stat” so you can begin Coumadin the tech tells you you can put it with “the other stats” which literally have cobwebs on them. Which explains why your “Stat CT scan” for an emergency stroke patient “can’t be done because the tube isn’t warmed up, unless you have ten bucks.” Yes, I have quite a number of experiences that would make you cringe.
That is funny!
In the Army, I was always told there was no guarantee, the congress could cut off the spigot any time they wanted to.
It was a big selling point for the military in the 60’s and 70’s.
Grew up as a dependent on a remote military base during the 50’s and 60’s and always used the base hospital.
Enlisted in the 70’s and that was the deal - pull your 20 and have free health care for life.
That all changed in the 80’s after the court cases. CHAMPUS became TriCare and the out of pocket expenses have been rising ever since.
Not to mention that at 65 it basically becomes Medicare/Medicare.
As I wrote, I was told it was never a guarantee.
I was told the politics of it made taking away veteran's health care unlikely, but it was never a guarantee.
My niece is currently an ER physician at the Detroit VA hospital.....
I bet she can tell her own stories. I have to admit I haven’t set foot in a VA in decades but unless they have changed significantly I wouldn’t take my dog to a VA.
A Protime so they can adjust your rat poison dosage............
Hadn’t thought about that in awhile. My dad died at 47 in 1996.
He got that monthly or so it seems.
They offer good care at the Detroit VA, unfortunately it's the doctors who bear the brunt of the abuse from the patients in the waiting areas who suffer from entitlementitis.....
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