Discussion for article #222950
ahhh. Another major problem that Obama learned from his tv.
1 Like
You made them serve years ago, but you didn’t care about them til it’s too late. Having to wait until you’re 75 for a hearing aid? Oh you’re usually dead by then. The RIGHT has been going out of their way to deny help to our hero’s.
2 Likes
I’m wondering why Stewart is getting all worked up about this. What happened and is happening at the VA is exactly what happens when we have the government managing healthcare. Thinking that there are people who would like to extend this kind of “care” to the rest of the Nation just gives me the creeps.
Awww, you think it’s better to simply give the vets “tax credits” so they can buy their own care? That is the only solution the Right can give that doesn’t look almost exactly the same as the AHA…well, besides “just let them die”.
Of course, the problem is that so many vets that actually need care can’t actually WORK, so tax credits don’t really help.
So…I suppose then the government could actually give the vets an amount of money that they can use directly, to buy their own care or health insurance. Except that…OMFG…that IS what the AHA is at it’s core, for those that cannot afford to buy their own insurance. And all of the OTHER parts of the AHA would be needed, especially the requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, otherwise not a single vet with PTSD, or cancer, depleted uranium in their lungs would get any coverage, at any price.
So PLEASE…tell us all of your wonderful plan to assist our vets that Bush Jr. sent into a 10 year battle, that does not either provide more funding to the VA to get to proper support amounts, or look just like the AHA for vets. You know, solutions that really are about having the government managing healthcare.
Go on, we’ll wait for your brilliant solution. I suspect it may be some fun…like waiting for them all to die, or relying upon “faith-based giving” to provide for them…
3 Likes
Fact is Obama should be ashamed and embarrassed for letting this happen. The man talks a big game about helping veterans but his record is a joke. Doesn’t matter what bush did. You could say its even more sad that Obama hasn’t done anything different then bush.
1 Like
Don’t be a wanker. Without the VA, the majority of our veterans wouldn’t be able to get healthcare from the private sector due to their “preexisting conditions.” My nightmare is unregulated healthcare, or do you not go to a licensed physician?
The failure of the VA is a perfect example of what happens when government is set up to fail. While the President, public and our Congresscritters go through cyclical bouts of accusation and finger-pointing, the institution has remained underfunded and ignored until it grabs headlines like it does now. Hell, if was ever funded appropriately, you’d probably complain about the “Cadillac Healthcare” provided to veterans.
3 Likes
Or Clinton, or HW Bush, or Regan, or Carter, or Ford, or Nixon, or Johnson, or Kennedy… need I go on? It’s a national disgrace and always has been.
2 Likes
STFU. You have NO SOLUTIONS to this intractable problem other than to blame POTUS who is not in charge of the VA. You’re nothing more than some right-wing idiot who’s likely screaming about getting rid of Shinseki when the problem goes even deeper than that. THE SYSTEM itself is broken and will take a variety of fixes in a variety of places. The VA, by and large, gets good reviews from veterans. It’s really unfortunate that the VA is currently dealing with veterans needing health care from:
WWII
Korea
Vietnam
Desert Storm
Iraq
Afghanistan
all at the same time. The GOP has blocked additional funding for the VA but then start howling about how the Dems are responsible for the mess they created. You have no alternative to what’s happening that would benefit our veterans just more whining. Which is all the right-wing is capable of.
4 Likes
You are saying the VA was better under Bush? Facts say otherwise - it was a disaster. They decided to start closing major hospitals at that time because it was so poor and underfunded. The simple fact is that unless we spend a lot more money on the VA, it will always be a disaster. But we can’t do that, because the Bush tax cuts have decimated the budget so there is no more money to spend. Add that to all of the Repugs in the House screaming “No Taxes!” while providing ever-larger tax breaks to their corporate masters, and there simply IS no more money to give the VA easily.
You want to get serious about fixing the VA? Repeal the Bush-era tax cuts. Remove Medicare Part D, with it’s obscene gifts to Big Pharma (as in no negotiation on the drug prices). Remove the huge tax breaks for multi-trillion dollar oil companies. Stop allowing multi-nationals to hide all of their profits off-shore and evade taxes on them - that is fairly EASY to do by changing the IRS rules.
Then the money is easy to find…in fact we could have the most impressive VA in the world, one that befits our brave soldiers, sailors, and air force. But the Repugs won’t let any of this happen, so our VA is a shell of it’s former self. But put the blame squarely on where it needs to be - the lack of tax revenue that is caused by all of the above and more. Fixing the VA is easy with the simple addition of funding.
1 Like
My husband, and by extension myself, have been dealing with the VA in Portland, OR, now for about 2 years. The system they have bureaucratically is abusive, and then they act as victims when you call them on it. The ER is run as a joke from what I have seen my husband and others go through - usually understaffed and with incompetent nurses making medical problems worse. Their satellite operations, like the one in Bend, OR, are criminally negligent and the primary care doctors are worthless, unless you like medical care via e-mail or phone - and there you get not doctors, but nurses and technicians responding.
And through it all you get excuses - nothing but excuses, upon excuses, upon excuses. You get told it is Obamacare’s fault - until you point out that the VA was exempted. You get told it is not a triage priority - even when it is post-surgical bleeding from a surgery only a couple of hours prior. You get told that their cannot meet their financial obligations to pay for travel because the Texas facility has closed for the day - even when it means stranding people hundreds of miles from home with no money for hotels or return gas money. When you challenge them, they act like helpless victims of your anger and demand to know why you even kept an appointment if you could not afford to get home from it - and then back off when you point out that you had to wait 8 months for that appointment and that your return money was used in an ER visit because you were hemorrhaging the week before and you expected you would be paid travel money on the day you are in Portland.
This system does everything it can to put up barriers to adequate and appropriate care for veterans. Everything from bad PCPs to administrative roadblocks to delays in care because you are not deemed a priority by someone. Now my husband did have two surgeons who did wonderful surgical work on him, but the neurosurgeon whom he had waited 15 months to see - well Dr. Ross never even came to the appointment. He sent a nurse-practitioner, while he wrote up his assessment of an MRI which disagreed with two radiologists, then told her to tell my husband that there are no surgical options and to get involved in a pain management network that is over 250 miles from our home! So my husband is now dependent on Oxycodone for pain management, and he is soon going to need something stronger since he is developing a tolerance for the drug. The VA is very good at pushing pills, and they are turning my husband into a drug addict!
Fix it!?! How about actually practicing what you preach!?! And while you are at it - how about blaming the GOP members of Congress that seem determined to block any financial or legislative help for veterans? Sen. McCain, you ran on your record as a veteran - how about showing up and actually voting on a decent VA bill sometime? And the rest of you, most of you did not serve, so pay your debt to those who did! They are not disposable weapons - they are human beings who deserve your respect and your support!
2 Likes
Barack Obama, November 12, 2007: “After seven years of an Administration that has stretched our military to the breaking point, ignored deplorable conditions at some VA hospitals, and neglected the planning and preparation necessary to care for our returning heroes, America’s veterans deserve a President who will fight for them not just when it’s easy or convenient, but every hour of every day for the next four years.”
Obama, July 23, 2012 at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, “For the first time ever, we’ve made military families and veterans a top priority not just at DOD, not just at the VA, but across the government.”
Two years later, according to aides, Obama is “madder than hell” over allegations that some veterans died waiting for treatment by the VA. Jay Carney was hilarious when he said the administration first heard of these allegations through media reports.
It’s single payer – tread carefully Liberals or play right into VA and Medicare privatization.
Once again proving that you ARE, in fact, a fool.
The Admin. did hear about what happened in AZ through media reports. Get it, moron? The VA system, in general, has gotten incrementally better under this Admin. since the Bush maladministration where problems were routinely ignored. If nothing else, they’ve opened up the health system to more veterans who otherwise would not have even been eligible for treament under the VA. And I believe that Shinseki is furious over this but what is to be done is going to be complicated and it’s not going to come without opening the purse strings. But that’s not what a-holes like you want, is it now? You, like the VFW, want Shinseki’s head on a pike, then have someone else take over, still with no more funding, then continue to complain that nothing is being done.
2 Likes