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

Category: Veteran Health Care

  • IVAW faults their ignorance for their problems

    Huffington Post writes that IVAW is struggling for veterans by participating in the Occupy movement.

    [Dottie Guy,] The former military policewoman is just one of about 2,000 disgruntled veterans who say they’ve risked their lives and well-being only to come home to a country that profits from their sacrifices.

    Yeah, I’m sure there are 2000 active veteran members of the IVAW. Despte the flight from the organization over the last two years. But Guy blames her own ignorance for her financial straits;

    When she came home from Iraq in 2003 with an injured ankle and severe anxiety, Guy was not aware of the military health services that were available to her. She relied on her job’s health insurance to cover her surgery.

    Yeah, who knew that a veteran could go to the Department of Veteran Affairs for help? That’s news to me.

    But now that she knows she can go to the VA, she doesn’t like it;

    “The VA services are abysmal,” Guy said. “But yet the corporations who are making all this money from these wars are living high off the hog.”

    Yeah, you should have seen the VA before the year 2000, Dottie.

    Another veteran, Scott Kimball, says that he didn’t want to go to the VA;

    When Kimball returned from Iraq and was battling PTSD, he couldn’t bear confronting it.

    “I was scared to go to the VA,” Kimball said. “I didn’t want to be a messed up veteran.”

    Yet somehow, it’s the DVA fault he didn’t get treatment.

    I’m glad that the IVAW has finally discovered that there are actually veterans who need healthcare, but their message needs to be a little less erratic and more focused so we don’t appear to be a bunch of whiney brats.

    Thanks to Daniel for the link.

  • More veteran health care ire

    While I’m on the subject, on top of my increased health care costs that I’m incurring, I also have to subscribe to Lifelock to protect my personal information because the government are such incompetent boobs that they can’t transport my information from point A to point B with out losing it. (Washington Post link)

    Letters are being sent this month and next to the homes of all 4.9 million Tricare military beneficiaries whose personal data has been stolen in one of the largest health-data breaches ever reported.

    According to Tricare, they lost all of our addresses and Social Security numbers back on September 12th when a bumbling idiot contractor had it stolen from his car when transporting the tapes to a back up facility. I suppose, instead of going directly to the facility, he stopped off for a half-dozen Boston Creme donuts and got himself robbed.

    Tricare also says they reported the theft on their website, and you know we all check the Tricare website almost daily…that’s why they have to send us letters three months later.

    So that’s another $100/year I’ve spent over the last eight years since the first time the government lost my shit to thieves. Ya know every other entity on the planet transmits that stuff securely, but government contractors have to ferry that stuff around in their POVs. Every time that stuff is stolen, it seems like it was taken from an unattended car. Except that time someone stole a contractor’s laptop at his home. Silly ne, I lock my computers up in a 600-pound gun safe.

    And it’s always veterans and retirees who get their stuff stolen.

    Is this what we have to look forward to when the government manages all of our health care records?

  • Rumor Doctor misses the point on veteran health care

    Our buddy, Jeff Schogol, also known as the Rumor Doctor at Stars & Stripes wrote a piece the other day entitled “Do veterans have a right to free health care for life?“. In his investigation, he has determined that no, we don’t have a “right” to free health care for life. But he misses the whole point.

    I don’t think I’ve ever claimed that we have a right to free health care. Just like the military didn’t have a right to expect me to show up at a moment’s notice in the middle of the night to do their bidding…but there I was. Everytime. And I wasn’t alone.

    I gave them my word that I’d go where they sent me…any where in the world, whenever they needed me. They trusted me. Just like I trusted them to fullfil their promise when my career ended. No recruiter promised me free health care for life. No contract was made…it’s just the way it was.

    Now that I faithfully fulfilled my end of the bargain, they want to change what they bargained for. How do I go back and recover what I lost during those years to make up for what they’re refusing to make good on?

    Is it any wonder that veterans mistrust government more than civilians. Is it really any wonder that veterans are conservative and want smaller government in such large numbers? I’ve never suggested that we sue the government for their piss poor treatment of us, we have no legal standing…the only thing we have are our lobbyists at the VSOs.

  • I’m sorry, did my back scratch your knife?

    melle1228 sends us a link from the Army Times in which John McCain throws military retirees under the bus.

    “Military retirees and their families deserve the best possible care in return for a career of military service, and nothing less,” McCain said on the Senate floor during debate on the $526 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 2012.

    “But we cannot ignore the fact that health care costs will undermine the combat capability and training and readiness of our military if we don’t begin to control the cost growth now,” he said.

    You know what else undermines our military capabilities? Throwing taxpayer dollars down the dark hole of the Education Department and the Commerce Department. And hiring legions of lawyers for the Environmental Protection Agency…but I don’t see anyone threatening those agencies.

    And, oh, yeah, in a related article from the Army Times, McCain is reportedly thinking about pulling our Tricare Prime out from under us;

    McCain, ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has proposed barring military retirees from signing up for Tricare Prime, the least expensive Tricare option available to them.

    Yeah, well, fuck you, too, ya pencil-dick moron. So how do I get my youth back after fulfilling my end of the contract, fuckhead? After yapping about supporting the troops, he has no problem sticking it right up our collective ass now.

    Where the fuck is the American Legion, the VFW and DAV now? Yeah, they write mean editorials, but why aren’t they camped outside of this fuckstick’s office? Dave Rehbein went straight to Obama’s office when Obama tried to buttfuck us. Where is Fang Wong?

  • McCain & Levin support higher costs for your free healthcare

    ROS sends a link from PNJ.com which reports that either way veterans voted in 2008, we were screwed. Apparently, the guy who lost the election, a veteran, I’ve heard, has sold veterans down the river like a real maverick.

    Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and John McCain, R-Ariz., its ranking Republican, endorse President Obama’s call to establish next year a $200 enrollment fee on TRICARE for Life, the prized supplement to Medicare for 2.1 million elderly military retirees, their spouses and survivors.

    Isn’t that great? When the Senate decides to be nopartisan, it’s to screw the shit out of veterans? But that’s not the extent of it;

    The first-ever TFL fee would climb to $295 in 2013 and, under the president’s plan, would be raised annually thereafter to keep pace with health care inflation.

    That’s not the end of it, either;

    Levin and McCain also back, with caveats, Obama’s other cost-saving initiative for TRICARE — charging sharply higher co-payments on drug prescriptions filled through the TRICARE network of retail pharmacies.

    So just remember that when our elected officials praise ou service on friday. they mean it so much that they don’t mind fucking the living shit out of us while they protect their own retirement packages, and those of their bloated staffs.

  • To CNN: How to read a DD214

    So TSO sent me this article from CNN about Iraq war veteran Robert Rissman, 22 who is on the streets of LA after being discharged from the Army. he tells Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a turd in his own right how Rissman was in a “Quick Reation Force” who saw action “night after night” and suffered from PTSD and was discharged because of his suicidal thoughts. CNN shows his DD214 in the video below;

    They also show a picture of him and his unit standing on the ramps of some FISTVs (fire support vehicles) so i started wondering about his ‘acton” Night after night”. I blew up a screenshot of his DD214 n the video;

    He was a 13D, artilleryman on a FIST Vehicle. Not much action there. Before you Red Legs get bent out of shape, stick with the story for a minute more. The DD214 says he was in Iraq december 2008 until August 2009…so how much action was tyhere to see? It was after the surge. And if he saw “action” “night after night”, wouldn’t he have a CAB? there’s none on the DD214, in fact there are no awards for anyone who would have the record he’s claiming to have, beyond the “everyone” awards….there’s nothing wrong with that, mind you, but it doesn’t match his blather to CNN.

    Well, what cinched it was this comment on another article about Rissman from someone claiming to have served with him;

    BIGGY MIKE says:
    October 23, 2011 at 8:18 AM

    Are you serious? Look, this is a very serious issue about homeless veterans, but you have honestly chosen the wrong veteran to come talk about this stuff. I was overseas with this young kid. He was far from always seeing action, they were rarely deployed out, and nor was this kid in any sort of “action” ever. Those of us that are still in the unit saw this and was highly outraged at the fact that the media didnt do any sort of background check on this person. This person was discharged from the army for a myriad of reasons, nothing to do with PTSD or anything of that nature. We have done more and seen more on our currently deployment that we did lasty deployment. 1 person from our BRIGADE earned a CAB (Combat Action Badge) from last deployment. That is 1 in about 2500 soldiers. Serious issue, wrong person to feature.

    One guy from the whole Brigade earned a CAB…one guy saw “action” – that’s why they call it a “Combat ACTION Badge”. So what did Rissman see that gave him PTSD? Did he see the civilian contractor spill the sprinkles for his sundae on the floor at Baskin Robbins? Did his pickle on his Whopper have a dust bunny on it?

    CNN giving these numbnuts a platform without looking into their background does nothing for the homeless veterans or the REAL PTSD victims.

  • Congress ready to screw veterans

    ROS sends us a link from the Army Times which quotes a bi-partisan letter from the House and Senate Veterans’ affairs committees that says veterans are the most vulnerable to massive government cuts…and we’re already bent over a greased up;

    “We believe no constituency better understands the challenge America faces, and no constituency is better suited to, again, lead by example by putting country first,” says a rare joint letter signed by the four top Democratic and Republican members of the veterans’ committees.

    Yeah, and no other cstituency has tken it so far up the ass every fucking time the government comes looking for spending cuts EVERY FUCKING TIME! And do you know why we’re supposed to just take it up the ass again? So the Congress desn’t have to do the tough work of actually cutting across the board spending in federal government.

    The top leaders of the House and Senate veterans’ affairs committees are willing to cut funding for the Veterans Affairs Department in hopes of averting across-the-board cuts in federal spending.

    So veterans should take it in the ass so Congress doesn’t have to cut their staffs, cut their own benefit packages, cut the largesse of government offices and buy some more $16 muffins for the Justice Department so they can coordinate their purchases of firearms for the drug cartels.

  • Gay veteran sues for “wife’s” benefits

    I guess it was inevitable. Old Trooper and jerry920 send us a link to an article about a lesbian veteran who has decided to sue the VA to get VA benefits for her “wife”. I’m not even sure if the veteran can be called a “disabled veteran”, because according to the article, her condition didn’t occur until after she was discharged;

    Cardona, who maintained aircraft during her years of service, applied for and began receiving military-connected disability compensation from the VA for carpal tunnel syndrome, which she developed as a result of her duties following her honorable discharge in 2000. The Puerto Rican native is still able to work and subsequently became a correction officer in Connecticut; she currently works at the York Correctional Institution in Niantic.

    Of course, she says it’s not about the money;

    “We could use the help to pay our mortgage, but this is not only about the money,” Cardona’s statement continued. “President Obama is right that [the Defense of Marriage Act] discriminates against gay and lesbian people. There are many other veterans out there just like me. I am standing up and asking to be treated equally in part to let others know they are not alone.”

    Yeh, way to stick up for fellow veterans who are in danger of losing their benefits by nickels and dimes. Let’s just expand the pool of non-veterans to pay out from our shrinking stack of cash. And this wouldn’t open the system up for fraud or abuse at all, would it? All so gay veterans can feel accepted.