VA charging disabled vets for healthcare?!?!?!?!

[Pingjockey]

As a disabled vet this article over on fox really pisses me off. Here is a blurb,

Veterans Groups Blast Obama Plan for Private Insurance to Pay for Service-Related Health Care

President Obama's plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs for the treatment of troops injured in service has angered veterans groups who say the government has a moral obligation to pay for service-related medical care.

Link to the article at the jump

What's everyone elses opinion on this????

[Sailor Steve]

I'm a veteran, and I use the VA for my health care. If I had outside insurance I would be required to use it. On the other hand, if I had outside insurance I almost certainly wouldn't use the VA.

I agree: If someone was injured on active duty, in service, then the government that GI was serving owes him his life, and his health. This is not a good thing.

[August]

When I first heard about this I figured it was just Republican propaganda but as an American I am ashamed to say that our President really is pushing for this.

[Pingjockey]

Nope, this is really being considered.... its shocking what this president will do to save a buck or two.

[LoBlo]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

On the other hand, if I had outside insurance I almost certainly wouldn't use the VA.

Can you expound? Why wouldn't you use the VA if you had outside insurance?

[Zachstar]

Because VAs are almost always overcrowded and pushed to the limit. A result of decades of presidents who talk about helping vets but never do much about it.

Including Obama who is doing a fine job pissing even me off with his actions lately (It seems he wants to be Bush-lite and is drunk with power)

[NeonSamurai]

Unfortunately this kind of crap is nothing new, governments (not just the US for that matter, many countries are guilty of stuff like this including my own) have a very long history of using up then spitting out their troops, including poor medical (especially psychological) support on return, cheating them out of pensions, refusing to pay their widows, offering VA hospitals with poor conditions, and generally dicking them around.

It fills me with such disgust and utter rage when I think about what they have done to people like my grandfather (who has spent well over half his life fighting for veterans affairs against the Canadian government), who fought for this country.

Oh and this crap isn't limited to one political faction, they are all guilty of it, be they republican or democrat, liberal or conservative. All political factions have been equally tarnished by such behavior.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by LoBlo

Can you expound? Why wouldn't you use the VA if you had outside insurance?

Most recent case? My driver's license expires soon. In order to get it renewed I have to get a letter from my doctor stating my diabetes isn't rendering me dangerous on the road. To get that I have to get a checkup. I have to wait seven weeks before I can get the checkup. So, no license for more than a month.

Actually we have one of the better VA hospitals here in Utah. There's just a very impersonal feeling to the whole thing.

[Frame57]

I am rated as 30% percent disabled by the VA. Problem was that the Navy misdiagnosed me. The VA (California) had me on 5 grams of sulpher drugs a day for a condition I did not have. I took my labs and X rays to a civilian doctor. The first thing he did was run new X rays because the images done by the VA were so bad that he did not know how anyone could read them. Turns out I was fine and it was the meds that were making me sicker by the day. I am sure that the VA has some good docs somewhere, but not here. I will never use them again if I can help it. One of thereasons some docs work for the VA is to avoid the high cost of malpractice insurance. So in a nutshell, I missed out on a full retirement because I had ulcers and a bad gallbladder.

[Sea Demon]

In all honesty, the government has never truly never given our people in uniform their due in this area. But this is truly unprecedented and saddening. I saw things like this coming when the election returns came on Nov. 4th. Yes, elections matter. How can we the taxpayers send these people off to sacrifice a few years of their lives...perhaps more if we allow this to happen.

[Pingjockey]

Here is a follow up by CNN on this issue. Looks like someone had to slap him around a little bit. LOL

[AVGWarhawk]

From what I understand, this was over 588 million dollars. Small beans compared to the billions he is blowing like a college kid on spring break. It is sad this that this came up in any conversation in Washington.

[August]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Actually we have one of the better VA hospitals here in Utah. There's just a very impersonal feeling to the whole thing.

We have a pretty good one here in Providence too but having had experience with both the VA as well as with insurance doctors I have to say one isn't all that much better than the other when it comes to personality.

[Frame57]

Another VA experience was at FT. Miley (Frisco). I am sure most of you know what Deep Cleaning/Root planing is in regards to dental work. At most Dentists they numb you up for this and do one quadrant at a time. Not the VA...No! I had a Filipino Dental hygeinist try this on me with no novacaine. I never went back for that torture scenario. I walked down to the Cliff house bar and had to have two Bombay Gin and Tonics to dull the pain.....

[August]

Originally Posted by Frame57

Another VA experience was at FT. Miley (Frisco). I am sure most of you know what Deep Cleaning/Root planing is in regards to dental work. At most Dentists they numb you up for this and do one quadrant at a time. Not the VA...No! I had a Filipino Dental hygeinist try this on me with no novacaine. I never went back for that torture scenario. I walked down to the Cliff house bar and had to have two Bombay Gin and Tonics to dull the pain.....

Pussy.