Senators vote no on paying vets to get VA care

Thank God this failed but too bad the Senator failed the veterans in the first place. Now they think paying veterans to get care will get them "cured"?? They don't understand PTSD any more than they understand veterans.

Senators vote no on paying vets to get VA care
By Rick Maze
Staff writer
Army Times
Posted : Wednesday Sep 12, 2012

The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee rejected a novel idea on Wednesday that would pay veterans to go to all of their mental health counseling and appointments.

The proposal failed on an 8-7 vote.

Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the panel’s ranking Republican, said he was trying to prompt a shift in focus at the Veterans Affairs Department: from paying and supporting not just people with disabilities, but also people trying to get better.

“Let’s be creative,” he said.

Burr wanted a three-year pilot program in three of VA’s 22 regions. “There is nobody on this committee who doesn’t believe VA mental health is broken,” he said. “Let’s try something different. We cannot affect the outcome, but we can make sure they get the treatment.”

Under Burr’s plan, veterans who attend all of their VA-prescribed mental health counseling and treatment would get a stipend as long as they keep their appointments, and would continue to be paid when treatment is over if they remain disabled. The stipend would be determined by VA.

Burr’s proposal, offered as an amendment to S 3340, a veterans’ mental health bill, comes as a response to long-term complaints that under VA’s system, veterans with mental health issues rarely seem to get better after they are diagnosed with a service-connected condition and start receiving disability pay.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the committee chairwoman, said she agreed veterans need to be encouraged to get the treatment they are ordered to receive, but she didn’t see how Burr’s proposal would resolve a problem that comes from not having enough mental health professionals to treat veterans.
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Having to not wait in line would have been a good place to start back in 2001 when the troops were sent into Afghanistan and Vietnam veterans were already waiting in line along with Gulf War veterans. Having proven programs to address living with Combat PTSD would have been great too. But then again making sure PTSD soldiers were not being discharged with "other then honorable" but getting treatment would have worked too. For all they got wrong, they are still trying to blame the veterans?