Don't like "socialized medicine"? Quit Medicare and the VA

Don't like "socialized medicine"? Quit Medicare and the VA
In answer to "Don't shove health reform down our throats" published 9:50 AM EDT, August 10, 2009:
Mae Stephens

Gary Odahara of Middle River, wrote "Don't shove health reform down our throats." In his letter he says: "I have served this country for more than 20 years in the U.S. Armed Forces and suffer from various ailments that occur in a person's life: hypertension, diabetes, atrial fibrillation and hypercholesterol."

This means he is a veteran and probably uses the Veterans Administration for his health care. If anyone is a vet and yet does not want health care reform for the citizens of our country, then I have a suggestion: Don't go to the VA for your own health care. Pay for everything yourself. The Veterans' Administration health care system is 100 percent socialized medicine! Taxpayers pay for the health care of ALL eligible veterans and their immediate families. So, if you are a veteran who does not like socialized medicine or health care reform, then quit using the VA!

Also, if you have parents using Medicare and you or they are against health care reform or "socialized medicine," you should send a letter to Medicare and state specifically that you want your parents to be dropped from the rolls and either you or they pay for everything. Medicare is governmental socialized comprehensive health care. Working taxpayers pay for this system. If you were to try to take Medicare away from Granny and Gramps, you would have a silver-haired uprising huge enough to cause earthquakes. The prevailing cry among the 65-plus set is "Don't mess with my Medicare!" Some of these folks think that health care reform means that somehow their Medicare is taken away from them. Who told them that lie?
read more here
Baltimore Sun

This really hits home for me. Aside from being married to a disabled veteran, so was my father. He was a Korean Veteran and 100% disabled. I have been surrounded by veterans all my life and know a thing or two about the VA.

First, no the VA is not perfect. There has been enough posts on this blog to prove that I know the problems very well. Considering the Congress and the President set the rules and the funding of the VA, this ends up being up to the people in charge. If the system is not working, it's our fault for electing them and not holding them accountable. This happened in the Bush Administration because we are very good at sending men and women off to war, but never seem to get involved when it comes to them coming home and needing us because they served. Readers of this blog are involved or you wouldn't bother reading a blog like this.

We have private health insurance to cover me and our daughter while she is still in college. CHAMPVA does not pay everything and since there is only a VA Clinic in the Orlando area, I couldn't enroll for care from the VA itself. So we have both types of insurance. The VA takes great care of my husband now that he has an approved claim but getting to that point was hell. My Dad had great care as well from the VA.

My Mom worked most of her life for a factory. My Dad passed away in 1987 at the age of 58. My Mom passed away in 2007 at the age of 85. She had CHAMPVA and Medicaid and AARP but even with that, when she was in assisted living, then in a nursing home, it cost her a fortune. We sold the house and most of the money she received from the sale of the house paid for her care. We were smart enough to put the house in all of our names after my Dad passed away just in case something happened to my Mom so that everything she worked for was not taken away.

For my in-laws, well it was not so great for them. My Father-in-law was a WWII veteran. He had a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. He never went to the VA, never filed a claim, worked all his life in construction. He died in 1994 and my Mother-in-law died the next year. They had Medicaid and Blue Cross, which took care of my Father-in-law in hospice. We couldn't get help to bury my Father-in-law because he never had a claim with the VA. They had no property left, but he left a life insurance policy enough to bury him. When my Mother-in-law passed away, we had to pay the bulk of the cost because she didn't have enough life insurance. Because she didn't have any money, Medicaid took care of her at the nursing home. This is the way the system is supposed to work. To take care of people without their own resources.

It is not a matter of one deserving more than others or free hand outs. It's a matter of providing the best care for all according to their own resources. I've read enough of some of the lies coming out about healthcare reform and for starters the Medicaid cut is about cutting out wasteful spending.

I know my Mom was so tired of getting the same tests by different specialists and tired of giving blood for more tests when they were already done. I can't count how many times she was sent for an x-ray on the same body part. This is where the cuts will come from. They will make sure specialists are not able to pad the bill with tests being paid for over and over again.

Then there is the lie about the government deciding who gets care and who does not. That's the problem already with the insurance companies doing just that. First we have what happened to my husband when his VA claim was tied up and we had to pay out of pocket for his care at the VA. The insurance company told us they wouldn't cover mental healthcare for him after the VA doctor diagnosed it connected to Vietnam. Imagine how we felt having to pay at the same time we were paying premiums. We thought we were doing the responsible things but suffered for it.

Then there is my brother. He worked as a superintendent in construction. The first time he lost a job, he had to pay COBRA and worried constantly about being able to afford it while paying for the house and everything else he worked so hard to buy. He found another job and worried about pre-existing conditions with high blood pressure as well as other things, but the insurance covered it. Wonderful until he got laid off last year. He lost his job in October and again, the worry returned. The Thursday after he lost his job, he wasn't feeling well but was worried about going to the doctor because he had an interview the next day. He passed away that morning from a massive heart attack. He was only 56.

Young people just starting out after college, when their parent's healthcare will no longer cover them usually don't have any insurance at all. They just can't afford it. Right now while my daughter is in college, she's covered but a lot of her friends have no insurance at all. They don't go to the doctor. They go to the emergency room and their parents help them pay the bill.

But it's not just the young. Working people also suffer without insurance. My friend Jen didn't have health insurance. They just never could afford it. A couple of years ago, she went to the emergency room and found out she had cancer. She walked out of the hospital planning on not going back because she said there was no way she could pay to stay alive. She had to be talked into going back. She was not just afraid of dying. She was afraid she couldn't afford to live.

Since all the steps in healthcare have been part of my life, I know something has to be done to make sure no one is ever afraid of going to the doctors or being ruined financially or seeing everything they worked so hard for going to take care of their health. How many people lost their homes over this? How many lost jobs and had been turned down for healthcare? How many families saw their elderly parents see everything they worked hard for to leave to their families be taken away because of the cost of their last stage care? Do any of the people screaming in the town hall meetings ever think of their own families, parents and children? Have they ever been touched by any of this with the people in their own lives? Ever have a friend go through it?

What is going on right now is not right. Nothing is being taken away from anyone. If they have insurance already, great, they can keep it and they should count their blessings they have it, but they need to stop being so selfish they don't want everyone having access to coverage as well. I have to wonder if what they have to gain by being against steps taken to providing for others to stay alive and as healthy as possible? Again, getting back to the above editorial, we already have publicly funded healthcare being given to some. For what does not work, it's our obligation to make sure the people we elect do the right thing and make it work. If they fall short, we need to stay on top of them. Elections are not the end of our obligation to the way this country is run. It's up to us to pay attention to facts all the time and not believe some commercial or political hack opens their mouths to talk about what is made up hype.