Posted on 08/31/2015 8:25:07 AM PDT by xzins
Retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson told the Dave Ramsey show on Wednesday that the Department of Veterans Affairs should be folded into the Department of Defense and VA facilities should only be used for specialized care like traumatic brain injuries and limb replacement procedures.
“The size of government has to be reduced significantly. There’s a lot of stuff that we’re doing that doesn’t make any sense. We have a Department of Veterans Affairs. We don’t need a Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans Affairs should be in under the Department of Defense, and it should be smooth transition,” said Carson.
The Republican presidential candidate said the U.S. should also examine how it cares for soldiers and that they should be in a support system immediately when they enlist, especially when they go into combat.
“We need to be looking at the way that we take care of soldiers. You know 14 percent down recruitment for our voluntary Army right now. Why? Because they’re looking at what we’re doing to our veterans,” he said.
“When a person applies to the military, they should be in a support system immediately from day one, particularly when they go through combat, because that’s when all the trauma is occurring, and we should have people in place a year before their time of discharge to be working on their integration back into society,” Carson added.
“There shouldn’t be a period of unemployment when they come out of the military, and they should have a health savings account, which allows them to go to any medical facility in the country, and we should be delighted to take care of them,” he said.
“We should use the VA facilities for specialized care for traumatic brain injury, limb replacements, and research,” Carson added.
It will injure vets if it’s under DOD.
Dang....looks like FR was down for a couple of hours?
Yep. FR was down.
You don’t know what you have til it’s gone.
Disagree. Support troops are PART of the army.
True....that needs to be posted on/for the FReepathon thread :)
Welcome back, FReepers!
Amen amen.
I didn’t see the interview, but the military is already responsible for the military hospitals all over the world. This could get rid of all the useless administrative expense in the VA and combine the medical care for the active and non-active military personnel under one umbrella. It is definitely something that could be considered. I would love to see the bloated VA administrators removed and have much better care for our veterans. The VA hospitals are disgraceful all over this country. For those Veterans that don’t have a nearby military clinic or hospital, they can get care in the civilian hospitals.
Which VA do you work in, xzins?
This couldn’t really be anything better than a cosmetic change, I fear.
The DOD would, in effect, be pulling the Veterans Affairs under its roof. And as pointed out, the management of this “cat-dog” agency would have inherent conflicts. I think Carson sees this as a shrink-government move but hasn’t thought through the management issues. I agree that generals don’t need, or want, the headaches. This is an issue for the civilian side of government to manage.
Ok, with very little knowledge of veterans’ needs, I do see what Carson is trying to do, and I wonder if it could be done even simpler.
What if our veterans, and our current military, were given vouchers for the best medical and psych treatment at the health providers of their choice? Obviously we would still need military doctors and providers out in the world, but stateside, why not just give them carte Blanche on our dime (I’m happy to pay) for X number of years depending on the length of service and degree of disability? I think they deserve it.
If someone is done after 4 years and has no trauma, maybe only four more years of medical coverage for free. But someone with severe trauma or a very lengthy service, I’d say give them medical care for life (within reason - no gender transformations and boob jobs).
There always will be medical centers and providers somewhere in the country who specialize in brain damage or burns or limb replacements.
I don’t work in a VA.
I’m a disabled veteran and I get great care at the VA. At a lot of hospitals, federal and private, the problem is management. Some VA, I would say most, get better Joint Commision (IG) ratings on healthcare than civilian hospitals. We need a president that will make it a top priority to take care of the nation’s vets and that means firing dead weight at some of the VAs. Eliminating the VA is not the answer. Brain surgeon Carson is not using his brain on this one and it will come back to bite him.
Military hospitals are established around the need to care for still-active troops. That’s a different issue from VA.
I’d think it a better move if there was a sincere attempt to have the VA be run by veterans as much as possible.
Generals should be focused on winning wars in my opinion.
He was head of neurosurgery at one of the top research hospitals in the nation. He was head of all the ego-bloated superdoctors of neurosurgery as well as the ego-bloated neurosurgery faculty at the medical school, and as such, served on several boards with oversight of large budgets and responsibilities for large numbers of medical staff and patient outcomes.
Why doesn’t FR have a Twitter account? They could inform us when FR is down and when it will be back up. It just makes sense.
The military has promised health care to veterans as part of the deal for signing on to risk their lives.
For those already in the system, I would support no change.
For those who haven’t yet signed on with the military, it is possible to change the promises made to them. The question is whether they will accept that deal.
Often, also, there are service-connected health issues that don’t become issues until later in life.
Well who is the real promiser in this thing anyhow.
That is a Congress level responsibility, which makes sense under an old fashioned view of the constitution. They are the people who are supposed to declare wars. They could put their foot down, in principle, on the President for attempting to go beyond that.
It ran better when it was part of DoD.
Why?
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