Obama: Fixing VA could take years
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Aug 13, 2009 18:49:32 EDT
President Barack Obama not only wants to improve the treatment of America’s veterans, but also to reach out to homeless veterans, as well as those who have turned their backs on — or are unaware of — the benefits they’ve earned.
“What we’re trying to do is just break down the hurdles that exist between veterans and VA,” Obama told Military Times and a small group of other defense reporters in an Aug. 4 meeting in the White House Roosevelt Room.
But lowering one of those hurdles — creating what Obama called “a VA that is consumer-friendly, that is oriented not towards keeping people out but bringing people in” — will not happen quickly, he said.
“It’s fair to say that this is a multiyear project,” Obama said. “We are going to be working vigilantly. We’re going to keep on pushing. We’re going to keep on prodding to make sure that both VA and DoD understand these very human issues are dealt with in the most thoughtful and effective way as possible.”
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Fixing VA could take years
How can a "Commander in Chief" who has never served this country in a military capacity begin to truly understand the needs of our Veterans?
ReplyDeleteThey come home broken, the government and the VA fails them, they often get in trouble, and Americans allow that they be locked up and the key essentially thrown away.
If he comes close to correcting the errors regarding the treatment of our Veterans, perhaps I WOULD vote for him next time.
Wife of a Vet
Hi Sue,
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question, think of what I do. I have never been to war, never served in the military, but have been serving them since 1982. There isn't much I don't know about PTSD or understand what they are going through. I think my blog and videos prove that, anyway.
All it requires is caring first and foremost. Valuing them second and then being aware of what they need from us. This President Obama has already shown. Very quietly, without the glare of the media spotlight, when he was running for office, with 95 million other things to learn, he traveled to Montana to take a look at their program to take care of the Guardsmen with PTSD and to prevent suicides. Spec. Chris Dana committed suicide and this touched off dramatic changes in how they treat these emotionally wounded. He was so impressed, he said if he were to be elected, he would replicate it across the country.
Now please keep in mind, that I do this 70 hours a week and track reports from all over the country as well as internationally. This is what I've invested my life in knowing about. The program the Montana National Guard has was one of the ones I fully supported. I knew it was better than anything else out there. The telling fact about President Obama is that he did too. He could have picked any other program to support, including the ones the DOD came up with, which do more harm than good, but he knew better, was fully aware of what was going on simply because he cared.
When he was a Senator, he served on the Veterans Affairs Committee because he cared. Is he perfect in any of this? No but he sure is trying to get this right. He's made mistakes trying to fix this mess, but when he was told by the service organizations one of the ways he was thinking about fixing it would do more harm than good, he changed his mind. This was over the issue of getting private insurance companies to pay for the care of the veterans. You really need to know what the back story was on this.
When the VA has not approved a claim, no matter how valid it is, the treatment the veteran receives is considered "non-service connected" and they are charged for the treatment. Even if they have private health insurance, they still have to pay because insurance companies say it's the responsibility of the government to take care of the veterans. This leaves the veteran trapped, paying for their care out of their own pocket until the claim is approved.
This happened to my husband for six years while he tried to have his claim approved and we had private health insurance. As soon as the VA doctor said his PTSD was due to Vietnam, the insurance company would no longer cover any mental health treatment for him. We tried to prove we could not afford to pay, but the "means" test came out that we did not meet free care. The VA took our tax refund several years in a row to pay for his care until his claim was approved and then they covered everything. This happens all the time.
President Bush was forced to increase VA funding because the Democrats took control over the committees. He had told them that if they wanted to increase beyond his budget, they would have to find the funds to do it. It was a battle but they got it done and passed the largest increase in over 30 years.
I put veterans first. I don't care what political party anyone belongs to as long as they do the same. I look at it this way. The military and our veterans serve this one nation as a whole and they risk their lives no matter how they lean politically side by side with others. They should be taken care of as a whole the same way. There are Republicans who care deeply and there are some using only words but vote the other way. The same story reflects on Democrats as well. It's up to us to know the difference and know if what they say meets how they vote on bills. Stay informed and you'll know if rumors are true or not and you'll know who really cares.