The only thing veterans have to fear...is Congress!

The only thing veterans have to fear...is Congress!
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 18, 2018
FOX News wanted to discuss how the Secretary of the VA has not reformed the VA fast enough. Well, while that is true, it is also true that none of the others managed to fix the VA when they were up against others trying to make sure it did not work right.

While the number of disabled and eligible veterans has grown, the VA is till short on doctors, therapist, nurses, claims processors and everyone else needed to treat our veterans properly. After all, they did pre-pay for their healthcare needs the day they joined the military.

Anyway, FOX said they wanted to interview groups willing to defend the latest Secretary in the hot seat, but they all declined. According to FOX the only one interested was from Concerned Veterans For America.

What Concerned Veterans For America folks do not tell you is that every Secretary of Department of Veterans Affairs has been subjected to all the blame since President Reagan made it a Cabinet level position and this article is still up on The New York Times going back to November 11, 1987.

"Under the Reagan Administration, some veterans have been required for the first time to pay a portion of the costs of their treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals. ''Some feel the V.A. is run now by the Office of Management and Budget,'' said Representative G. V. (Sonny) Montgomery, Democrat of Mississippi, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee."

And pay close attention to this part too,

The Veterans Administration has more than 240,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $27 billion. It would become the second largest Federal department in employment, behind the Defense Department. It spends more than $15 billion a year on benefits programs to veterans and their dependents, including pensions and compensation for injuries. 

According to the VA, this is in President Trump's budget request.

In the FY 2019 Budget, President Trump proposes a total of $198.6 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).  This request, an increase of $12.1 billion over 2018, will ensure the Nation’s Veterans receive high-quality health care and timely access to benefits and services.  The 2020 AA request includes $79.1 billion in discretionary funding for Medical Care including collections; and $121.3 billion in mandatory funding for Veterans benefits programs (Compensation and Pensions, Readjustment Benefits, and Veterans Insurance and Indemnities accounts).

The other thing they do not tell you is that Congress has had jurisdiction over the care of veterans since the first Committees were seated in 1946!


If the VA is still not able to meet the needs of our veterans, then blame them, and the others pushing to privatize the VA while refusing to admit killing it is what they wanted to do all along. You know, like Concerned Veterans of America.
Guess they don't want to mention that sending veterans into for profit healthcare providers has left them with this!
Fear of debt leaving veterans choosing death over the ER


UPDATE
Here is another image..

Members of the American Federation of Government Employees protest outside the Department of Veterans Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 13. Since a travel scandal broke on day later, VA Secretary David Shulkin has been under attack from outside critics questioning his ethics and internal rivals unhappy with his policy moves. (Leo Shane III/Staff)

Who is in charge at the Department of Veterans Affairs?

“Right now it doesn’t look like anyone is in charge,” said Paul Rieckhoff, chief executive officer of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “It looks like chaos. It’s brutal political trench warfare, and veterans are caught in the middle.”

Secretary Veterans Affairs Wants to Close 1,100 Facilitates and Kill Jobs?

This is how they kill off the VA instead of honoring the fact veterans pre-paid for the best care this country could provide them with, but have had to fight the country for it since the Revolutionary War. We really should be ashamed of ourselves for letting Congress get away with all of this!

Shulkin says he’s considering closing 1,100 Veterans Affairs facilities 
ASSOCIATED PRESS 
BY HOPE YEN 
May 3, 2017

The department recently announced hiring restrictions on roughly 4,000 positions despite the lifting of the federal hiring freeze and also left open the possibility of “near-term” and “long-term workforce reductions.” Shulkin is also putting together a broader proposal by fall to expand the VA’s Choice program of private-sector care.

WASHINGTON — Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin says his department is seeking to close perhaps more than 1,100 VA facilities nationwide as it develops plans to allow more veterans to receive medical care in the private sector. 

At a House hearing Wednesday, Shulkin said the VA had identified more than 430 vacant buildings and 735 that he described as underutilized, costing the federal government $25 million a year. He said the VA would work with Congress in prioritizing buildings for closure and was considering whether to follow a process the Pentagon had used in recent decades to decide which of its underused military bases to shutter, known as Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC. read more here

VA Backlog of claims is not new

VA Backlog of claims is not new
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
March 25, 2013

Am I happy with the backlog of claims? No because I know what it is like when they have to wait for the VA to get to them and have their claims approved. I know because it took the VA six years to approve my husband's claim. Six years? Yes. Six years of waiting, fighting, suffering and doubting they would ever honor his claim. What made it worse was when he came home he had the same attitude his Dad did. The VA is for guys that can't work and had their legs blown off." So for years, he refused to even consider filing a claim. Every time the mail came from the VA with another letter telling us his claim was denied was like a knife in his back. Hope was slipping away with each bill we couldn't pay and one of them was for his treatment at the VA because he had received care for a "non-service connected" illness. The non-service connected illness was PTSD caused by his service to this country in a war zone.

Even with all of this, while most are slamming the VA for the backlog of claims, I will not.

The headlines for the last couple of years have all been about the backlog but there is so much more to this than the press will talk about and that is a great injustice to all of our veterans.

This quote is at the bottom of my emails.

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, is directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated" -- George Washington

Are they living up to it? No but listen to Veterans Affairs Secretary Shinseki then read the rest of the story CNN didn't talk about.

March 24th, 2013
Secy. Shinseki to CNN: "No veteran should have to wait for claims as they are today. We have a fix for this, we're open for business, and we will end the backlog in 2015."

Veterans in the last four years, Candy, have joined us in unprecedented numbers. There are 800 more veterans enrolled today than were enrolled four years ago in health care. 940,000 more veterans enrolled for benefits than there were four years ago. So, the fact is that veterans are coming to us, and they are being enrolled. We produce a million claims decisions each year going out the door and have for the last three years. And so, when we talk about an inventory of claims today, of about 875,000 claims, of which about 600,000 are backlogged. Just the amount of work we put out the door indicates that this is not a static number. There are going to be a few who are complex enough to go longer than we’d like, but there is a lot of work being done.
read more here

When my husband's claim was filed, George H.W. Bush was President and Anthony Principi was Secretary of Veterans Affairs. It was 1993. Bill Clinton took over as Commander-in-Chief and Jesse Brown took over as head of Veterans Affairs. He was replaced by Hershel Gober until 1998 and he was replaced by Togo West when the letter finally came saying my husband's claim had been approved for 50% and we would receive a pro-rated check going back to when he filed the claim in 1993. By the time he finally received 100% disability, George W. Bush had replaced Clinton and Anthony Principi was back as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Three Presidents since he filed his claim but Richard Nixon was President when he was sent to Vietnam. Gerald Ford was in the chair as Vietnam veterans came home vilified and ignored, told to get over it as they tried to do that and it was not until Jimmy Ford had come and gone and Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981 that true research had begun on PTSD.

The National Center for PTSD was created in 1989 within the Department of Veterans Affairs in response to a Congressional mandate (PL 98-528) to address the needs of Veterans and other trauma survivors with PTSD. The Center was developed with the ultimate purpose to improve the well-being, status, and understanding of Veterans in American society. The mandate called for a center of excellence that would set the agenda for research and education on PTSD without direct responsibility for patient care. Convinced that no single VA site could adequately serve this unique mission, VA established the Center as a consortium of five divisions. The Center currently consists of seven VA academic centers of excellence across the U.S., with headquarters in White River Junction, VT. Other divisions are located in Boston, MA; West Haven, CT; Palo Alto, CA; and Honolulu, HI.

That is how long the VA has been working on PTSD. But you have to be aware that far too many Vietnam Veterans had their PTSD claims rejected until 2010

Under the new rules a veteran need show only that he or she served in a war and performed a job during which events could have happened that could cause the disorder.

"... for years, many veterans with PTSD who have tried to seek benefits -- veterans of today's wars and earlier wars -- have often found themselves stymied. They've been required to produce evidence proving that a specific event caused their PTSD. And that practice has kept the vast majority of those with PTSD who served in non-combat roles, but who still waged war, from getting the care they need," Obama said.

"Well, I don't think our troops on the battlefield should have to take notes to keep for a claims application. And I've met enough veterans to know that you don't have to engage in a firefight to endure the trauma of war. So we're changing the way things are done."

The price was estimated to be $5 billion.

So the VA had Vietnam veterans, joining Gulf War veterans, joining Afghanistan veterans, joining Iraq veterans standing in line for what their service to this country caused. That is how we ended up in this massive backlog but again, it wasn't the first time claims waiting had reached the close to a million mark.

Veterans Benefits Administration and the Board of Veterans Appeals at VA, was 803,000 on Jan. 5, 2009. The backlog hit 915,000 on May 4, 2009, a staggering 14-percent increase in four months."

Are we living up to what George Washington said? No but as you can see, we haven't done that in a very, very long time. It would serve veterans better if reporters actually addressed what has been going on all these years so that we don't keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

Shinseki Sworn In, Vows 21st Century Service to Veterans

Recent VA News Releases



To view and download VA news release, please visit the following
Internet address:

http://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel


Shinseki Sworn In, Vows 21st Century Service to Veterans



WASHINGTON (Jan. 21, 2009) - Retired Army Gen. Eric K. Shinseki took the
oath of office today as the Nation's seventh Secretary of Veterans
Affairs, assuming the leadership of the Department of Veterans Affairs
following Tuesday's confirmation by the Senate.



"The overriding challenge I am addressing from my first day in office is
to make the Department of Veterans Affairs a 21st century organization
focused on the Nation's Veterans as its clients," Shinseki said.



Shinseki plans to develop a 2010 budget within his first 90 days that
realizes the vision of President Obama to transform VA into an
organization that is people-centric, results-driven and forward-looking.



Key issues on his agenda include smooth activation of an enhanced GI
Bill education benefit that eligible Veterans can begin using next fall,
streamlining the disability claims system, leveraging information
technology to accelerate and modernize services, and opening VA's health
care system to Veterans previously unable to enroll in it, while
facilitating access for returning Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans.



Shinseki, a former Army Chief of Staff, takes the reins of a
284,000-employee organization delivering health care and financial
benefits to millions of Veterans and survivors under a $98 billion
budget authorized this year through networks of regional benefits
offices and health care facilities from coast to coast.



Born in 1942 on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, Shinseki graduated from the
U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in 1965. He served two
combat tours and was wounded in action in Vietnam. He served with
distinction in Europe, the Pacific and stateside, eventually becoming
the Army's senior leader from June 1999 to June 2003.



Retired from military service in August 2003, Shinseki's military
decorations include three Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts.



Shinseki succeeds Dr. James B. Peake as Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Shinseki confirmed as new VA secretary

Shinseki confirmed as new VA secretary
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jan 20, 2009 16:29:22 EST

Retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki was confirmed Tuesday to be secretary of veterans’ affairs in President Obama’s Cabinet.

The Senate confirmed Shinseki by voice vote and without debate just hours after Obama was sworn in as the 44th president. The Senate also approved the Cabinet appointments for the energy, education, interior, agriculture and education departments and Obama’s choice to head the White House Office of Management and Budget.

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