Posted on 06/16/2014 9:57:08 PM PDT by pansgold
In 1968 when I enlisted, my enlistment contract guaranteed me that for the rest of my life I could be seen at any VA hospital or clinic for free for the rest of my life on a tier system.
1st. To be seen were service connected disabilities. 2nd to be seen were active duty personnel and their families. 3rd. And last to be seen were all other veterans.
You could walk-in and wait and you may have to wait all day but you would be seen by a doctor. All medications were free at any veterans hospital or clinic, no means test required.
In 1993 Congress authorized a ``means test'' as a way to determine if a veteran has private financial ability to shoulder some or all of the costs involved with medical services.
The government required veterans without means testing to re-enroll for benefits and it used intimidation with the threat that failure to re-enroll “might” result in a loss of all benefits. I like others agreed to this although I felt like we had all been betrayed.
With the new all volunteer military I feel that the means test should only have applied to those enlisting after the “means test” and they agree to it in their enlistment contract.
Means testing now applied to WWII era vet’s, Korean War Era vets and Vietnam Era vets.
Don’t think I’m crying in my beer about this. I’m not. I know millions of vets like myself served between 1960 and 1975. Congress needed to cut the cost of veteran healthcare in some way.
I say to congress, don’t dance if you can’t pay the fiddler. Don’t start a war and institute a draft and promise good times in the golden years if you can’t keep your word.
Wash-rinse-repeat with social security, medicare.
The US government runs a multi-decade and multi-generational ponzi-scheme of political promises paid for with printed money and cheap government debt. We are at the point where the Fed must artificially suppress interest rates, to rob savers and workers, to ensure interest rates do not rise, and its member banks and the US Government remain solvent. Nature can not be allowed to take its course, because the structure would collapse.
you think mean testing was bad for VA benefits?....wait til they do it for SS and Medicare....then you can really get cranky...
I’ve been saying this for years. I was told my healthcare would be free for life. I even had it explained to me that it was all part of the compensation. Now I pay co-pays on my meds and $50 an office visit other than the two yearly check up visits.
social security was sold as never going to be more than 3% of your paycheck too.
never believe them when they promise things will never be more than “x”. never. or won’t get bigger, or’smaller, or whatever they are tryng to sell you their crap, with.
While on active duty in 2008 (Tricare, not VA), I was told that I had to pay 20% of the cost for a medical device that they said I needed. I looked on Amazon and found that I could buy the same thing for what they said was a 20% co-pay.
I fully agree with the original poster. Unfortunately, “We had an agreement”, anymore means the citizen/service-member is the only party bound by the agreement and the govt can and does violate the terms with impunity by the stroke of a legislative pen.
It is absolutely wrong and unethical at *best*. Not a damn thing we can do about it. No future politislut will ever seek to restore the agreement and willingly fulfill their end of the agreement. All that supporting funding is needed to buy votes now and in the future.
I remember when a sincere handshake, not to mention a sworn oath, used to mean something. Perhaps that sort of talk is too "jingoistic"...
As Brat said, government has a monopoly on violence, or at least the “legal” use of it. They don’t have to do anything they don’t want to do. OTOH, you have to do everything they want you to do, or face threats and coercions that ultimately end at the point of a loaded gun.
That’s the nature of the beast.
No, you didn’t. You swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies. Foreign and domestic.
“No, you didn’t. You swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies. Foreign and domestic.”
Like this?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3048468/posts
I live the oath and told my congressman so. When he violated his oath he became the “domestic enemy” ...not me.
If they do all the above IN ORDER (in other words, they do #1...and if that isn't sufficient, move to #2, and if that doesn't work, then finally do #3), I would be willing to consider consenting to some sacrifice.
But not until that point. I am not at all sanguine to having to give anything up from my retirement (nor am I willing to give anything up as far as current / retired military benefits for the troops) as long as free money is provided to illegal aliens, foreign dictators, or the lazy who choose not to work.
Close. Yet there the clown is. Before you get huffy, I took it as well. In fact it may be worse for me. It was pointed out to me that no matter what the DD 214 says an officer is for life.
The country’s broke. That’s that.
So I don’t have to pay my debt’s now because I’m broke too!
WOOPIE!!!!
I love the help the VA gives me. The problem for my wife of 42 years and I is all our income easy to grab. I was so disgusted when I re-enrolled and they told me because of a disability check from workers comp, I had to copay 8 bucks per prescription which doesn't sound too bad. I get 11 prescriptions per month.
If I don't pay the bill the VA sends me, the treasury just grabs it from my social security every few months and that's near a grand every year.
Sorry boys, I just had to vent somewhere after a VA social worker argued with me about why I no longer get my medical care through the VA about two today.
Let me tell you why. I bought private part D insurance for 26 bucks a month that has a zero annual deduct able and a zero copay. Now all of my meds are zero per month. You'd think with how broke the gummit is, they'd have been glad but they weren't and that worked almost cried to get me back into the system.
I see a private MD now and medicare pays 80%. The Family Healthcare Network accepts that amount as payment in full for me.
There are vets that need the help much more than I do anyway and the VA doctors will use the time they'd spend on me to help someone else.
God Bless America! It's still the greatest place on earth.
I served for just over three years active duty, three years inactive reserve and was honorably discharged. My worst service related injury was a five stitch cut on the eyebrow in a ship’s team football game.
I don’t feel the VA owes me anything outside the use of the mortgage guarantee program they offer. If I was destitute I might feel differently, I suppose.
Hey, $88.00 a month, what does that number mean? Oh, yeah, that was my monthly pay when I first reported aboard for duty.
You could buy a home for 10K and people flew the American flag and stood silent, hand over heart as the National Anthem played at a ball game.
How did America get so far off course. Gone forever are those days.
Or less…
*cough*stop-loss*cough*
During a hospital stay at one of the VA system places...I wanted to get out as soon as possible. The reason was the cost.
Told the nurses I wanted to leave before I couldn’t pay the bill. One told me that I had already paid my bill.
Never got any bills from that stay.
Probably shouldn’t have said anything out loud. ;)
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