I would like to use Veteran Healthcare. However, the backlog is months out. So, I go to the outside for care. It is not that I want to do so. The VA has been short of staff for a while now. Much of this is a concerted effort to kick us out into public care. The present head a holdover from the Trump Admin. has not been doing much to staff the VA. This last go-around for my spine was a disaster. I met the surgeon who was good. She decided it might...
Read More »$3 Billion Shortfall in VA Benefits for Disability and Education
It figures. Just about the time they accept me in for full benefits due to my being at Camp Lejeune, the VA is starting to rund short on cash to pay for the Pact Act. What is said further down in this report, medical care is running short on funds too. That shortage is ~$9 billion. I know the one facility where I might go is short of doctors to handle spinal damage. Still waiting for the commercial healthcare to get back to me. They know I am out...
Read More »Without swift action, the VA will continue ‘eliminating choice for millions of veterans’
by Jasper Craven Task & Purpose In mid-April, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, and Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, sent a letter to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough demanding to know why the agency was wounding itself. Specifically, they worried about a series of seemingly contradictory eligibility and staffing policies. In March, the VA handed down a directive that expanded healthcare eligibility to...
Read More »Trump vs. Biden: Who Got More Done for Veterans?
by Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early Washington Monthly Trump has mocked veterans and privatized their health care. Biden honors them but hasn’t challenged Trump’s privatization policies. Currently, they are moving more and more veterans to commercial healthcare. This rather than restoring VA healthcare to a better place for veterans to be and at a lower cost. Think of Medicare Advantage. From mocking John McCain’s military service...
Read More »Trump’s VA Plans Look Too Much Like Biden’s VA Reality
Since I use the VA, I find this message by Suzanne and Steve to be discerning. I had thought with the changes in leadership, the VA would begin to act like a VA and take back all of the programs which were being out sourced to external expensive healthcare. Study after study has shown, VA care is as good and more likely better than commercial enterprise healthcare. And yet, we are here again fighting a battle to keep the VA. This should have been won...
Read More »The VA Privatization and Other Detrimental Policies
Disadvantaging the VA: How VA Staff View Agency Privatization and Other Detrimental Policies I use the VA as I am eligible for it. I need to apply for my two+ years in and out of Camp Lejeune. Just have not done. My disorder comes and goes and Rituxan seems to put it into remission. There are others there who have far more serious issues than I. The VA does offer good care in spite of what you hear. These reports as shown here are not made up. If...
Read More »The Latest VA Health Commission Prematurely Dies Along with Plans
A well-deserved death for an ill-conceived plan for veterans. The 2018 VA MISSION Act was to help shape the future of veterans’ health care delivery by creating the Asset and Infrastructure Review (AIR) Commission. The modernization as planned by Trump was to be accomplished by downsizing VA hospitals and clinics with the goal of privatizing the VA’s healthcare services. Instead of following President Biden’s attempt at bipartisan support, both...
Read More »VA health care system treats vets better than private facilities
Coming fresh off of featuring Kip Sullivan’s “Single Payer Health Care Financing Presentation – Three Part Series,” also “Continuing the Conversation concerning Medicare and Medicare Advantage Part 1 and Part 2.” and Kip Sullivan and Ralph Nader Talk Tradition Medicare vs Medicare Advantage; I came across this article by Suzanne Gordon concerning Veteran healthcare and its facilities. Suzanne advocates for veterans and the VA along with Phillip...
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