This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Veteran Health Care

  • Romney promises to not hike Tricare fees

    Hondo sent a link to the Army Times article by some guy named Rick Maze who works for the cowardly, backstabbing senior editor, Tobias Naegale, in which they report that when Mitt Romney spoke to the American Legion last week, he promised that, if he’s elected president, he won’t hike Tricare fees for military retirees like the current administration plans;

    The quest to raise beneficiary fees is a longtime Pentagon initiative that has spanned several administrations, but Romney said he won’t ask service members and retirees “to pay more for their health care to pay for Obamacare.”

    There is no direct link between the Tricare fee increases sought by the Defense Department — and mostly rejected by Congress — and funding for the Affordable Care Act that is commonly called Obamacare, but the promise still drew loud cheers from the American Legion crowd.

    Yeah, nice save for the Obama Administration, Rick, except that the guy, David Chu, who wanted to hike personnel fees and lower benefits in the Bush Administration was never as successful as the clowns in this administration. And the Clinton Administration was successful in kicking military retirees over 65 years of age out of Tricare and into Medicare.

    And of course this 500% hike in Tricare fees isn’t part of the Obamacare health bill. This administration promised us that healthcare was going to be cheaper for regular citizens while raising costs for veterans, you know, because veterans haven’t done enough for this country already.

    I probably don’t need to tell this crowd that last year,the president told the American Legion Convention that he wasn’t going to balance the budget on the backs of veterans, but we’re the only ones paying more for the services we earned, then any of the services the government offers to people who haven’t worked a day in their lives.

    Romney also promised to get all veterans who qualified for the Post 9-11 Education Bill in-state tuition rates regardless of their qualification and it should be that way. Veterans served the whole nation, not just their home states. And if illegal aliens qualify for in-state tuition, why shouldn’t veterans?

  • Secret Service questions Marine vet about “jump the White House fence” comment made to Vet counselor

    John sends us a link to a story at Military.com about Kevin Lane, a Marine Corps veteran who was visited by Secret Service agents about a less than artful comment he made to his counselor. Apparently, he was medically retired from his job as a Pentagon police officer and regretted that decision and was frustrated over attempts to get back to the job. He told his counselor that maybe if he jumped the White House fence, someone would listen to him and help him out.

    That comment, instead of assistance, brought Secret Service agents to his door step.

    Lane’s situation drums up concerns veterans and PTSD patients already have about the confidentiality of their counseling sessions and how their condition will affect their careers. Lane said PTSD cost him his job, and this incident made him distrustful of people he’d expected to be able to turn to for help.

    Secret Service officials confirmed they interviewed Lane and explained their agents have a responsibility to investigate any possible threat against the president.

    “The Secret Service respects the right of free speech and expression but we certainly have the right and obligation to speak to individuals to determine what their intent is,” Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary said in an email.

    Maybe the Secret Service was doing their job, but was the counselor doing his? It reminds me of the sergeant in DC who was reported by the suicide hotline counselor to the police which resulted in police breaking into his apartment and his arrest.

    Somehow, I don’t think this kind of stuff happens to civilians. Well, actually, it doesn’t happen to civilians – like the Colorado shooter whose clinician didn’t report his behavior. Or Loughner in Arizona who the police knew was illin’ but did nothing about it, until he shot up a bunch of people.

    Lane didn’t even threaten anyone. Any person who has ever been to the White House can attest that there are so many security people wandering around, no one could get far if they jumped the fence – which happens a couple of times every year.

    Lane even told the counselor that he understood the downside of doing that, and that he wasn’t intending to do it. But the counselor felt a need to contact the Secret Service anyway. Nothing like giving a paranoid person a reason to be paranoid, is there?

    ADDED: John clarifies who the counselor really was;

    The PTSD counselor was not from the Veterans Administration but from a Virginia Department of Veterans Services Grant funded Wounded Warrior Project (not the national program of same name) run by the Rappahanock Area Community Services Board. It is a group of do gooders from the local Mental health Regions collecting a paycheck venturing into areas that should be the purview of the Military and the Veterans Administration as well as the many Veterans Service Organizations. while they have been employing Vets to be Peer group leaders it seems to have been a nice financial boon for the local community service boards to suck up on the government grants to provide additional services at the Community Level for Virginia Vets.

    Mr Lane would have been better served to have gone to an good PTSD program as offered at the Martinsburg, Ruchmond or Lyons VAMCs where he would have gotten care and counseling he needed from people who deal with Veterans on a daily basis and who generally know enough to tell the difference from Hyperbole and a real threat!

    PTSD is not a mental Illness it is a normal reaction to life threatening stress. It never goes away but tools how to deal with that stress help to assuage the affects. these local boards need to leave the issue to those who know best and get out of the business of offering services out of their lane. I know it is a nice rice bowl for them but it belongs with real Veterans Professionals.

  • Troops stepping up for mental health

    Just A Grunt sent us a link today from CNN in regards to the healthcare profession looking to returning troops to step into the mental healthcare field with help in Massachusetts from the State Department of Veterans’ Services;

    Born a year ago with funding from the Department of Veteran Services in Massachusetts, a program through the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology called Train Vets to Treat Vets has recently picked up steam. It has several goals: mentoring new veterans, providing services to at-risk and homeless veterans, and educating the public about ways they can help.

    “As the stigma (of seeking professional mental health treatment) breaks down more and more, and more veterans are willing to come into treatment, (the need) is just going to increase and increase,” said Robert Chester, 25, who served in the National Guard for six years and became a student at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology.

    “That’s why we want to get more veterans into mental health, both to break down the stigma and get more clinicians out there.”

    It makes absolute sense, because who knows what the troops have been through in war better than the troops know?

    Since the program’s start, Chester has fielded e-mails every day from veterans who want to get involved. Six will enroll in the school’s fall class.

    Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology President Nick Covino says the idea for the program came from a Latino mental health program the school began about eight years ago.

    I just want to know why the Department of Veterans Affairs isn’t involved in it since they need more mental health clinicians than anyone else?

  • Tricare defends fee hikes in face of $708m surplus

    Yeah, about that whole not balancing the federal budget on the backs of veterans thing, Tricare admitted that they have a surplus now, but they still want fee increases recommended by Leon Panetta’s Defense Department, according to the Stars & Stripes;

    Instead, in the first six months of the fiscal year, private sector health costs grew at “historically low rates,” according to budget documents. The rate was only 0.6 percent for active duty. More surprising, private sector care costs for retirees, their families and survivors actually fell 2.7 percent.

    As a result, the health program has a $708 million surplus, which the department wants to “reprogram” into other accounts to cover higher than expected fuel prices, the unscheduled deployment of a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East, and higher transportation costs tied to Pakistan’s closure of the main land route for U.S. supplies into Afghanistan.

    So, apparently, retirees are supposed to pay to deploy an aircraft carrier? What fuel price increases does Tricare have? Well, besides the fuel costs that retirees incur when they drive to the facilities. And there wouldn’t be any fuel price increases if we drilled our own resources.

    But these ideas [Tricare fee increases] will be raised again as Defense officials continue to argue that, unless fees increase, additional force cuts will be needed.

    So, basically, they’re just pitting retirees against the active duty force.

    So, how long are veterans supposed to be “giving” to the country, and especially the little ingrates who are working at the Pentagon who see no problem in raiding the money we put into our healthcare so they can deploy aircraft carriers. Don’t get me wrong, I want to see more aircraft carriers deployed to the Middle East, but not on the backs of veterans.

    “I was surprised,” [Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.)] said in a phone interview. “Because the information we had been provided is that the reason for increasing the Tricare premiums, up to 365 percent … is ever increasing health care costs. As it turns out, there really is a downward spike in health care costs.”

    I’m surprised that no one noticed until now.

  • Cheap talk

    According to Stars & Stripes, Ric Shinseki and Leon Panetta made a joint appearance in front of their oversight committees; House Armed Services and House Veterans Affairs committees; to smile and wave away questions about why their clerks can’t talk to each other about veterans’ health records;

    “Collaboration and cooperation between VA and DOD have never been more important, and I think for the next two decades … this will be the work of the nation,” Shinseki said.

    The agencies represent the two largest bureaucracies in the country, in terms of personnel and funding.

    Panetta said the VA health care system is already “overwhelmed” with claims from troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and he expects problems to get worse as the Afghan war winds down and the military starts reducing its personnel numbers.

    Shinseki said he and Panetta have met regularly, sorting out ways to ease transition out of the military.

    Like I’ve said before, when I left the military in 1994, my records were sent to the VA after I turned them in at outprocessing and within a few months, I had appoints scheduled for me and jumped through the hoops to get my care finalized. So what the hell has changed, well, except that technology should have made it easier than the days that they sent actual paper records between agencies?

    I’m sure there are some critics out there with more knowledge of the problem than me, but to me this is just sloth on the part of bureaucrats when there used to be a completely acceptable system that worked admirably and now there’s not.

  • Shinseki: Backlog at DVA is good news

    Yes, you read that right, back during the last Administration a backlog of enrollment in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs meant incompetence and evidence that the Bush Administration didn’t care about veterans, But, now, Shinseki, in a Rick Maze piece at Army Times, sent to us by Chief Tango, says it’s good news that the backlog has grown.

    Appearing before the Veterans of Foreign Wars in an election-year address aimed at showing the best side of the Obama administration’s policies, Shinseki said the total inventory of veterans’ claims was 400,000 when the administration began and is about 880,000 today.

    The growth, he said, “is what happens when we increase access.” While it has meant some veterans are waiting longer for their benefits to start, “it was the right thing to do,” he said

    Really, the Obama Administration “increased access”? How exactly? If I’m not mistaken, the last expansion of access to VA benefits came from the Bush Administration and they had half of the backlog that the Obama Administration is currently dealing with.

    Of course, the Army Times doesn’t address that little fact. Yes, the Obama Administration is funding the DVA at a higher rate, but that’s only because they plan on pushing those of us on Tricare into the VA system and it’s so Brandon Friedman can tell tell me that this administration is expanding spending on veterans while Leon Panetta is actually jacking up our Tricare premiums, which, by the way, doubles on October 1st.

  • Obama to VFW: I’ve got your back

    The president spoke at the VFW convention in Las Vegas today and he closed his speech with the phrase “I’ve got your back”. The first thing I thought of was the last time I heard him mention my back at the American Legion convention last year when he said he wasn’t going to balance the budget on the backs of veterans while his defense secretary was planning to do exactly that.

    President Barack Obama gave a 31 minute speech to the VFW National Convention Monday in Reno, ending the speech by telling the vets, “I’ve got your back.”

    Obama’s remarks were often followed with cheers, applause and standing ovations.

    He promised to keep the U.S. military as the indispensable fighting force in the world and vowed to continue fighting to improve the veteran’s health-care system.

    Yeah, when he talks about the “veterans’ health care system, he’s talking about the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, he’s not talking about the DoD healthcare system that we earned. He’s trying to push us out of that system and into the VA. I don’t like the VA because it’s staffed by civilians who don’t understand me and my ailments. Army doctors do understand. VA doctors are bureaucrats, it’s been my experience that military doctors care more about what they do. The VA hospital is closer to me, but I go where there are military doctors.

    Now, I’m not sure that Romney won’t screw veterans, the only reason he hasn’t, I’m sure, is because he hasn’t had the opportunity yet. But I’m also certain that I would rather Obama have my front, because I don’t trust him behind me. And the only reason that I need someone watching my back is because of him and his administration doing their best to put it to me, so I sure don’t want him watching it.

  • Study: veterans and violence

    PsychCentral reports on a study that tells us what we already know – it’s not PTS that makes veterans violent, but rather pressures that surround them when they exit the military.

    “When you hear about veterans committing acts of violence, many people assume that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or combat exposure are to blame,” Elbogen said. “But our study shows that is not necessarily true.”

    Factors that were associated with violence included alcohol misuse, criminal background, as well as veterans’ living, work, social, and financial circumstances.

    Wealth was an issue as the survey found that veterans who didn’t have enough money to cover basic needs were more likely to report aggressive behavior than veterans with PTSD.

    “Our study suggests the incidence of violence could be reduced by helping veterans develop and maintain protective factors in their lives back home,” Elbogen said.

    Oh, so veterans are just like normal people? Really? Who knew?

    So, because we’re like everyone else, maybe treating us like we’re all John Rambo, one traffic stop away from a murderous rampage is the wrong approach to dealing with veterans.

    Treat us as if we’re just like you. And sometimes we’re our own worst enemy about that. One of my workmates was a supply clerk in Vietnam and he used to act like the crazy Vietnam veteran and made the whole office scared of him – breaking into Tourret’s-like cussing spells when things didn’t go his way. It led to the whole office treating us newly-hired veterans like we were all a bunch of lunatics and it created a tense working environment.

    But civilians should judge veterans like they do anyone else they meet on the street instead of like we’re recently-caged animals.