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

Category: Veteran Health Care

  • Simpson: vets are causing the deficit

    Alan Simpson, the co-chair of the President’s deficit commission, blamed veterans for the ballooning deficit;

    “The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess,” said Simpson, an Army veteran who was once chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

    So basically, Simpson is saying that, now that veterans have given their all, youth, limbs and organs, to the country, we should just chalk that up to the cost of doing business and sacrifice YET AGAIN? As I’ve been telling you since before the 2008 election, the government always turn to veterans to give up their benefits which they earned for their service before they turn to the millions of leeches whose idea of sacrifice is giving up an afternoon of Oprah to apply for more benefits.

    Thanks to Tman for the link.

  • DVA wastes millions on abandoned buildings

    Jerry920 sends us a link to a Fox News story about the Department of Veterans Affairs wasting millions of dollars every year on buildings it can’t occupy and won’t fix;

    Exactly how much it costs to maintain the run-down and abandoned buildings is a matter of dispute. The General Accountability Office estimates that the VA has spent $175 million every year since 2007. But the VA disputes that figure, saying it spent $85 million on the buildings in 2007 and only $37 million last year.

    Get that? “Only” 37 million bucks last year. So given the best case scenario, they wasted enough money to pay more than 1200 people $30k each last year to fix those buildings…or tear the things down.

    VA blames complicated federal property rules. Like they’ve never broken other rules to shortcut quality treatment of veterans, but when it comes to being useful or saving some money that could help veterans, they’re suddenly hamstrung by rules.

    It’s not entirely Shinseki’s fault, but if he’s really for the veterans like he’s claimed since day one on the job, he should fix this as expeditiously as possible and put that money to work for veterans.

    I’m not holding my breath.

  • Moron

    Do you need proof that IVAW is chocked full of poseurs and fakers? No better example exists than Jeremy Stainthorp Berggren (WTF kind of name is Stainthorp anyway? What kind of pretentious set of parents would saddle their spawn with that moniker?) But, anyway, I wrote about the doofus back in March when he told us that you don’t have to deploy to suffer from PTSD because he got PTSD from his dreams while his unit was deployed to Iraq and he stayed in the States.

    I will not get too much into the guilt and shame that goes through a marine’s, or probably any servicemember’s, heart and head in a situation like this, but it is at a disturbing level to be stuck stateside while your friends, your peers, and unit are gone. Throughout my unit’s deployment I had a difficult time sleeping, had nightmares about what they were doing, but this made me feel more alienated so I never talked about it and just bid my time and got out as soon as my contract allowed me to.

    The Veterans Affairs Department defines PTSD like his;

    Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something horrible and scary that you see or that happens to you. During this type of event, you think that your life or others’ lives are in danger. You may feel afraid or feel that you have no control over what is happening.

    The DVA website goes on to give examples of what might cause PTSD;

    * Combat or military exposure
    * Child sexual or physical abuse
    * Terrorist attacks
    * Sexual or physical assault
    * Serious accidents, such as a car wreck.
    * Natural disasters, such as a fire, tornado, hurricane, flood, or earthquake.

    So you actually have to be present at an event in order to suffer from PTSD. Not like Matthis who claims he heard horrible stories, or Stained-drawers who had bad dreams.

    Well, I mention it today because Stained-drawers has what could be loosely described as a poem at the IVAW website about how tough his life is because of his PTSD (http://www.ivaw.org/membersspeak/please-try-something-different-ptsd). Now, I’m no medical expert but HEY, FUCKWAD, YOU DON’T HAVE PTSD! Nothing degrades the treatment of REAL PTSD victims like all of these half-witted pretenders.

    To me this new type of Stolen Valor is worse than wearing medals they didn’t earn, or calling themselves Iraq veterans when they haven’t deployed out of NY State. There ought to be a specialist at every DVA facility whose only job is to throat-punch these peawits. Hell, i’d do it on a volunteer basis.

  • dickmith: Bush’s shameful treatment of veterans

    Yeah, I’ve been trolling at VetsVoice again. dicksmith is peeing himself with excitement that the Obama Administration has made it easier for veterans to qualify for treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

    The government is making it easier for combat veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder to receive disability benefits.

    The Veterans Affairs Department plans to announce Monday it will no longer require veterans to prove what might have triggered their illness. Instead, they would have to show that they served in combat in a job that could have contributed to post-traumatic stress disorder.

    This is good news – real PTSD cases will get treated while the IVAW members who claim they got PTSD from the pizza guys at 8th and Eye, the IVAW members who claim they got PTSD from interviewing real veterans while a journalist and IVAW members who claim they got PTSD from worrying about their friends who actually deployed, well those guys won’t qualify for treatment without trying to convince the DVA they were combat soldiers. That’ll get some more phony soldier business.

    But anyway my bitch with dicksmith today is this paragraph;

    This doesn’t even address the Bush Administration’s under funding of VA and general lack of concern for Veterans and caring for them. The treatment received by Vets from George W. Bush was shameful, but President Obama has raised the bar and set a new standard for the way we care for Vets.

    Yeah, Bush’s underfunding of the VA. See, I actually research before I make idiot claims like that. According to the VA’s own accounting, their entire budget in 2000 (the year before Bush became president) was $106.2 billion. In 2008, the last year of his presidency the DVA’s budget was $422.6 billion. So the “underfunded” DVA’s budget grew four-fold under Bush. Was it enough? No, it wasn’t, but it was a damn-sight better than it was before him and a damn-sight less shameful than dicksmith would like to you to believe.

    dicksmith’s post brags that Obama set the standard for Veteran care, but it looks to me like Bush set the standard and Obama learned from Bush to not slight veterans.

  • Democrats vote to tax veterans for medical devices

    Orin Hatch tried to exempt veterans from a planned tax on prosthetic devices in the Senate according to The Examiner.

    The health care overhaul passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama earlier this year contains a new tax on medical devices such as prosthetic limbs, pacemakers, and wheelchairs. This tax, which its proponents claim will raise $20 billion over the next ten years, contains no exemption for the nation’s 22 million veterans. In fact, Senate Democrats specifically refused to exempt veterans from the tax., according to officials from the non-partisan, public interest group Americans for Tax Reform

    On March 24 2010, Senate Democrats rejected an amendment offered by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to the healthcare bill. This amendment (SA 3644) would have prevented the medical device tax from hitting veterans covered by the Veterans Healthcare Program or TRICARE for Life.

    This amendment was rejected by a vote of 44-54. All but five Democrat senators voted in favor of retaining the tax for veterans.

    “On March 24, Senate Democrats had the opportunity to exempt our veterans from Obamacare’s new tax on medical devices such as prosthetic limbs. But 54 Democrats voted against the measure. They chose to side with the tax-and-spend crowd in Washington over our wounded warriors,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

    “This is one of the many reasons Harry Reid and the Democrats did not want Americans to read the 2,500 page health care bill before it was passed,” Norquist added.

    So I wonder why this is the first we’re hearing of this – of course I mean the “regular guys” we. Like I’ve said, this administration is going to try and balance the budget on the backs of retirees and veterans – the same people who don’t get increases in their income yet end up paying more so Democrats can buy patronage from the itinerant.

  • VA Committee chair criticizes Obama Administration

    The other day I wrote about the Veterans’ Affairs Department notifying over 1800 veterans that they might have been infected by a hospital’s failure to sterilize dental instruments properly. Yesterday, in The Hill, Russell Berman writes that the Democrat chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.) got a little heated about it, too.

    Filner criticized the administration for taking more than three months to send out the letters after it discovered the faulty safety precautions in March. “We should be much more caring not only about the procedures but the way we deal with them after they’re known,” the congressman said. He said it was “disgraceful” that Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki did not know about the lapse until last week.

    Filner said the “only way you can get accountability is if there is someone who actually pays a price for this….”

    Good bye,Eric. The door’s over there on the wall. Shinseki, the director of the DVA has proven that he’s an incompetent boob over the last year and a half. Remember the flap over the new GI Bill payments that were delayed because the VA could tell their assholes from their elbows? Filner is right – someone has to pay for this incompetence – I say fire Shinseki and just for GPs, throw out Brandon Friedman, Tammy Duckworth and Kayla Williams.

  • DVA says ‘sorry’ to 1,812 potential AIDs victims

    “Sorry” – that’s the letter 1,812 veterans who were treated at a St. Louis medical facility got from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs;

    The letters say the risk of infection is low but offer free blood testing to screen for the hepatitis B virus, the hepatitis C virus and for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infection.

    The VA letter said that dental equipment “may not have been cleaned correctly.”

    “We deeply regret that this situation occurred and we assure you that we are taking all the necessary steps to make certain that testing is offered quickly and results communicated timely,” the letter reads.

    Isn’t that sweet? “The risk of infection is low” but high enough to notify 1812 potential victims. How do you not clean dental equipment correctly? Half of a hospital’s staff only job is to clean stuff correctly. How do you not clean stuff incorrectly for 13-months and then suddenly decide you’ve been doing it wrong all this time?

    It reminds of the countless letters I’ve gotten from the VA telling me that my identity has been compromised because one of their bone head employees lost their computer – they always “deeply regret” that they can’t unring the bell. Why can’t they deeply regret it before they do it, for Pete’s sake?

  • Georgia Legislature Passes Bill to Put PTSD Diagnoses On Drivers Licenses

    From Bellavia via Fox News:

    Veterans groups are blasting Georgia lawmakers for passing legislation that would allow a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder to appear on driver’s licenses.

    The legislation, which awaits Gov. Sonny Purdue’s signature, would permit servicemembers and veterans to request a PTSD denotation, which would appear on their driver’s licenses as a specific health problem, much like poor eyesight.

    Here is another article from a local Georgia news site on the bill.

    State Senator John Douglas (R), one of the bill’s cosponsors, has nothing but good intentions:

    “I thought it was something that could help sick veterans and police officers. It would be beneficial to both sides,” Douglas said. “If a law enforcement officer saw a certain move or something like that he may could attribute it to something along the lines of PTSD. Many police officers and deputies are former military themselves and it would help garner some understanding and recognition of something they themselves might well be familiar with.”

    Riiiigggghhhhttttt. Douglas apparently served in the Army as an officer for 17 years but was forced out because “of the Gulf War drawdown” according to his website. He never served in combat. Even better, this is a bipartisan assault on veterans’ rights. The bill’s other cosponsor, Sen. Ron Ramsey(D), says it is “completely voluntary”. Here is his genius logic on this:

    “For example if a veteran suffering from PTSD was pulled over for a simple traffic violation, a designation on the license explaining the circumstances could inform an officer that the situation should be handled cautiously,” the statement read. “If a veteran does not feel it is necessary to designate this on their license, then they do not have to. Again, it is entirely voluntary.”

    Let me say that any veteran that voluntary puts this on his drivers would be akin to a Jew “voluntarily” putting a gold star on their clothing in Nazi Germany. There is a negative stigma attached to PTSD  and when most people hear those four letters they usually think of Rambo or Travis Bickle thanks to our enlightened Hollywood friends. I can also see many vets being tricked or “voluntold” into putting this on their license. Want to get a veteran or purple heart license plate? Oh just check this box right here sir and they will put a special sticker on your new license. Might be a stretch, but still this is a DMV we are talking about it. Marvin Myers, president of the Georgia Vietnam Veterans Alliance Inc, brings up some other issues as well:

    “What happens if Jerry Smith has PTSD on his driver’s license and he goes into a gun store? The clerk is going to say, ‘Oh no, I’m not selling you that gun,’” Myers said. “I just think you open up Pandora’s box. You’re disclosing too much of yourself.”

    Not to mention applying for a job, credit card, home loan, or even buying beer (for us young bucks), all of which require a drivers license these days….

    A shitty idea and a shitty bill. The bill is currenting awaiting a signature from Gov. Perdue. Here is his office’s contact info.

    Please kindly let him know that this is offensive to veterans.