![\"Moulton\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Moulton.jpg\")
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Seth Moulton is a former marine with combat experience in Iraq over four tours there. \u00a0He got a hernia lifting weights, and so he went to the VA. \u00a0That might not seem out of the orginary, but Seth doesn’t have to go, because his day job provides health care coverage. \u00a0In fact, he’s a Freshman Member of Congress from Massachusetts. \u00a0So he went to the VA in DC. \u00a0To phrase it charitably, it did not go well<\/a>:<\/p>\n “I went to the VA, showed up and checked in at the front desk, and about 30 minutes later, they told me that they had no record of me. They couldn’t prove that I was a veteran. But they would consider taking me as a humanitarian case,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Well, the seemless transition isn’t going well, but let’s see how he did after that….<\/p>\n He said he did not identify himself as a member of Congress, since he was just going there as a veteran. Moulton said he didn’t have his VA card on him, but had his license and social security number.<\/p>\n “More than enough things to put into their computer system, supposedly the world-renowned VA computerized medical records system,” he said.<\/p>\n Moulton suggested that the front desk employees call the VA hospital in Boston, where he had previously received care. After eventually getting through, the Boston VA said it would fax something down.<\/p>\n He said employees in D.C. then questioned aloud whether their fax machine even worked. In addition, he said veterans in the waiting room next to him had been waiting there for “hours.”<\/p>\n After a surgery, he was prescribed the powerful painkiller Percocet, as well as Advil. However, after he was sent home with medication, he discovered he had just been given Advil.<\/p>\n “And so I opened up the bottle and took a pill. And sometime later, it was still hurting an awful lot, and so I went back for a second one and realized that I didn’t have Percocet. I just had ordinary Advil. Of course, the pharmacy was closed at that point, so I was out of luck,” he said.<\/p>\n He added, “If that’s the care they’re giving to a United States congressman, you can imagine what the average veteran is getting at many of the VA facilities across the country.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I’ve also been to the VA in DC. \u00a0It was horrible. \u00a0I could barely walk, so I went there for an MRI for herniated discs, which I already knew I had. \u00a0This wasn’t years after service, it was literally 3 days after coming off terminal leave. \u00a0I still remember the date, September 2. \u00a0After an interminable wait the lady finally said that yes, I needed an “emergency MRI” and that she could schedule that for me……on October 23. \u00a0Literally 7 weeks. \u00a0Again, I could not walk. \u00a0Later they pulled the secret waiting list game on me, where she said I would have to call back in a week to try to schedule, because the next 30 days were booked solid, and they had to see OEF people in 30 days or they got in trouble. \u00a0Exasperated I told her that was fine, that I had the VA Secretaries phone number in my cell from when I met him overseas, and I would call him and see what he thought. \u00a0Miraculously a spot opened up.<\/p>\n After that I never went back to that VA again.<\/p>\n Then I moved to Indiana. \u00a0I’ve gone to the VA probably 10 times here. \u00a0The longest wait I have had for a visit to be scheduled was 72 hours. \u00a0Either this is the best VA in the country, or the VA just isn’t allocating resources properly to match where the need is.<\/p>\n So today I find this letter essentially blaming Moulton<\/a>:<\/p>\n While <\/span>I have no reason to doubt Representative Seth Moulton\u2019s story (\u201cIn effort to fix woes in VA care, Moulton taps own experience,\u201d<\/a> Page A1, June 5), his comments would hold more weight if he also addressed the performance of Congress. It is, after all, Congress that authorized two wars and then expanded eligibility for VA health care without providing the corresponding funds. Perhaps the new congressman could offer his critique of the do-nothing Congress in as public a forum as he offers his critique of the Veterans Affairs health system.<\/p>\n Only when Moulton mentions the failures of Congress to provide funding for increased veteran services can he be seen as an objective observer. Until then he is a part of the problem.<\/p>\n Devote time to improving the VA, but acknowledge that it will happen only as Congress cleans up its act.<\/span><\/p>\n William F. O\u2019Brien, Eastham<\/p>\n The writer is a retired chief of VA mental health services in Dayton, Ohio.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Seth Moulton has been in office just over 6 months. \u00a0VA budgets are done a year in advance. \u00a0Just how exactly should he be held accountable? \u00a0Second of all, how exactly would increased funding fix someone putting Advil in a Percoset bottle?<\/p>\n I’ve been to VA funding hearings. \u00a0Hell, I’ve even testified in VA funding hearings (both appropriations and authorizations.) \u00a0The VA comes in with a budget request, and then Congress tweaks it. \u00a0 \u00a0But I VIVIDLY remember hearings in like 2004 or 2005 when then-House Chairman Steve Buyer (not my favorite person) absolutely laid into the VA people because they had used numbers from 2000 to figure out how many patients would enter the VA that year. \u00a0 They used figures from before the war, to determine how many people would show up. \u00a0The VA got every dime they asked for, and then came back and had supplemental requests when they realized their budget was off by monumental amounts.<\/p>\n Blaming Congress is easy, almost as easy as blaming the VA. \u00a0And I’m no huge defender of the Congress. \u00a0But if someone comes to you and says I need $100 for a hotel room, and then comes back 2 days later to say it cost $456, do you blame the person who gave you what you asked for? \u00a0Or the person who didn’t bother to figure out the actual cost? \u00a0Look at the Denver VA. \u00a0The Congress didn’t solicit the bids for building the facllity, the VA did that. \u00a0And we’re at almost 3x the projected cost. \u00a0How can you blame Congress for actually showing deference to the budget request of the people who are supposed to be the subject matter experts?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A friend of mine who is a subject matter expert adds this:<\/p>\n VA Budgets:<\/p>\n\n
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