It is about time that reporters actually took all of this as seriously as veterans deserve from them...and this "grateful nation" when it comes to how we repay them.
First, if you heard that veterans want to be able to go to private providers of their healthcare, there are two sides to that. One is, if they live in a rural area, they have to travel for hours to go to a VA Hospital. The other factor is that Congress never fixed the problems that have been plaguing veterans since the Revolutionary War. Congress? Yes, because they write the rules and the checks to pay for what veterans get after they were willing to pay with their lives for what Congress asked them to do.
Secondly, if you think putting veterans into the mess the rest of us deal with in the private sector is a good thing, then you are part of the reason they never got what they deserved from us. When was any of this acceptable to us?
Veterans Affairs secretary: "No way" administration will privatize VA
CBS News
April 22, 2017
Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin reiterated that President Donald Trump’s administration is “in no way” trying to privatize the VA, after Mr. Trump earlier this week signed a law extending private care options for veterans.
“In no way are we seeking to privatize the VA,” Shulkin said Saturday on “CBS This Morning,” adding that the VA needs to work “closer” with the private sector to use an “integrated” approach to veteran care.
Shulkin said when he took office that he was against privatizing the VA, a stance that stirred fears from some conservatives that the Obama-era holdover would continue the status quo at the VA.
Shulkin’s latest remarks came two days after the president signed a law eliminating the August expiration date of a program born out of the 2014 VA wait time scandal. The new law allows enrolled veterans to see doctors in their communities instead of waiting for a VA appointment.
Shulkin wouldn’t reveal any details about a press conference Mr. Trump will hold next week about veterans issues, but said the news conference will cover the “tremendous progress” the VA has made.
read more here
Members of Congress have been pushing to sell them out to the private sector for decades. Look it up beginning with Senator John McCain and how he ran for the Presidency in 2008.
POLITICS-US: McCain’s Plan to Privatise Veterans’ Health CareBy IPS CorrespondentsAnalysis by Aaron Glantz*SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 21 2008 (IPS)
If John McCain is elected the next U.S. president, wounded veterans could be in for a world of hurt.
On the campaign trail, the Republican’s presumptive nominee has talked of a new mission for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and argued that veterans with non-combat medical problems should be given vouchers to receive care at private, for-profit hospitals – in other words, an end to the kind of universal health care the government has guaranteed veterans for generations.“We need to relieve the burden on the VA from routine health care,” McCain told the National Forum on Disability Issues last month. “If you have a routine health care need, take it wherever you want, whatever doctor or health care provider and get the treatment you need, while we at the VA focus our attention, our care, our love, on these grievous wounds of war.”The Republican senator argues that giving veterans a VA card that they can use at private doctors would shorten the long wait times many veterans face in seeing government doctors, who are nearly universally viewed as among the best in the world.
This is blowing smoke! The fact is only 20% of the veterans in this country use the VA for all their healthcare needs. If a veteran is 100% disabled, then the VA treats them for everything! They will bill another insurer if they have another plan for non-service connected care, like Medicare and Medicaid, but they still do it all.
"While about 40 percent of veterans get some health care from the VA, only about 20 percent of all veterans rely totally on the VA, according to a 2015 government survey of health and health care use."
But in the same article there was this,
A recent study by the RAND Corporation found that “VA patients were more likely to receive recommended care” and “received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow up” than that delivered by other U.S. health care providers.Virtually all veterans groups oppose McCain’s plan. The Veterans of Foreign Wars’ national legislative director has said the VA card would “undermine the entire system”.
Veterans pre-paid for their healthcare when they joined the military! Anything less than understanding that fact and honoring it is reprehensible. Taking credit for something that had nothing to do with who is on the job today is disgusting, almost as much as not holding any of them accountable!
None of the problems veterans face fighting for that commitment to be delivered on is new. For Heaven's sake! When members of Congress decided to reward private providers for donations to them, they started to kill off the VA. Hell, if the VA worked properly then every deserving veteran would want to go to the VA and they'd never be able to sell veterans out.
Congress controls all of it and they've been owing veterans an apology since 1946!
GMP
