VA Hospitals A Mess

Anyone have any comments? Our soldiers are recieving substandard health insurance after returning from war. Something needs to seriously be done, I hope everyone takes time to write their local congressmen to look into this issue.

This is one more reason why we can not have universal health insurance. Look at what a great job they are doing with our veterans, they deserve better.

I couldn’t agree more. A soldier wounded in the service should have access to first class care for as long as he needs it.

I listened to a Staff Sgt testify today who needs a prostetic eye, something that is an improvement over the patch he has. He wants to get it done and have the army pay for it. They want the VA to do it. The Sgt. makes a lot of sense with his request and I support his effort.

The entire mess at Walter Reed is a disgrace and I’m glad they cleaned house. The government has a debt to pay to these men and they better settle it to their satisfaction.

That’s why i hate to see our young men go to war,we have a history of not taking proper care of our wounded and injured soldiers,from the Civil War to Present.Then you have a guy gettin on the news at the beginning of the War with that fake bravado crap telling the enemy to Bring It On.Notice he did’nt bring it when his butt was on the line.DISGUSTING!

Here’s the irony: We have more surviving service members now because of advancements in battle-field trauma units so now we have a mass of service members returning to the states and nowhere proper to put them.

This really isn’t a problem with the VA as it is with DoD–they are two seperate entities.

Here’s a typical scenario: Soldier gets wounded and fixed up at a field hospital; he’s then sent to Landstuhl, Germany where he recieves more urgent care or perhaps has surgury that wasn’t possible in the field; he then goes to Walter Reed AMC to recover before being sent back to his unit or be given a full medical discharge. Between recovering while on active duty to being discharged is where most of the trouble starts (military personell cannot be discharged with out a full checkout of health and disabilities benefit package from the VA). Two different organizations with two different procedures for essentially doing the same thing.

The VA in my opinion isn’t taking many of the injuries seriously and in some instances are treating different branches differently for the same types of injuries. For example it was suggested in the Congressional Armed Forced Committe testimonials by the GAO than Air Force personell are 6 times more likely to recieve benefits for the same type injury than Army personell were. The VA was not on hand to respond to this accusation.

To say the least it is UNACCEPTABLE.

The mess at Walter Reed exposes the lie behind the bogus conservative claim that private companies always perform better and are more efficient at doing a job, than what the government can do.

Generals Tie Walter Reed Privatization to Deplorable Conditions

Army leaders admit the move to privatize support services and hand base operations, including repair and maintenance upkeep, to a well-connected contractor drove skilled workers from the base and played a role in the deteriorating and substandard living conditions wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center were forced to endure.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/03/07/generals-tie-walter-reed-privatization-to-deplorable-conditions/

Ho-hum , more cronyism from the Bush Team. IAP the company who was contracted to run Walter Reed, is part of the Republican’s old-boy network. Privitization is all about political connections, not qualifications.

IAP is also one of the companies that FEMA hired to help with disaster relief after Hurricane Katrina… IAP are the ones who sent trucks filled with 127 million pounds of ice all around the country, and waited… and waited …and waited. And your tax dollars paid for it. Now why would we need tons of ice in Maryland, if the hurricane was in Florida? Only IAP and FEMA know the answer.

http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2007/03/troops-deserve-better-than-then-lowest.asp

Government run health-care at its best! Anyone else who has also served will tell you getting GI Bill benefits are also as difficult as the healthcare issue. It is called a government bureaucracy. This has been going on for a long time and creating a new government bureaucracy to solve the old one is not the answer.

I’m surprised this is news to anyone I remeber my dad a korean war veteran getting all sorts of crap when he needed eye operations. An eye that was blown out by a grenade that he walked 15 miles to have put back in.

Try this thread: Take Care of Our Own: http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1472490&pageNo=0