Veterans, Doctors Alike Stranded as Vet Choice Fails to Pay its Bills

[RV_]

Excerpt:

"One day in 2016, Army veteran Jason White finished cleaning his pistol, wrapped his hand around the grip, and put the barrel to his temple.

"He'd had enough. Five years after his deployment in Afghanistan ended when an IED explosion "pinned him between two vehicles, he was 100 percent disabled, in pain and still at war inside. This time, though, it felt like he was fighting the enemy alone.

'I'd had three deaths in the family, and four guys in my unit who'd committed suicide,' he said. 'Everything was going wrong, everything was bad.' "White pulled the trigger, but the weapon jammed.

"After his wife learned what he had done she accompanied him to the Department of Veterans Affairs' Floyd K. Lindstrom Clinic in Colorado Springs, where White said he was told he faced a six-month wait to see a therapist.

'They knew I was suicidal and still it was six months to talk to someone,' said White, 30. 'My wife was extremely mad.'

"A few days later, White got a call saying the VA had referred him to the Veterans Choice Program, a federally-funded initiative that would pay for his visits to a provider in the community. An appointment with participating Colorado Springs psychologist Michael Sunich was set up for the following week.

'I was skeptical of seeing someone to talk about all the issues to begin with ... things I wouldn't even talk with my wife about ... but I started seeing him weekly,' said White, whose five years of active duty had left him with a crushed spine, severe traumatic brain injury, post traumatic stress disorder and insomnia, among other debilitating ailments.

"After several months of meeting with Sunich, White says his life 'turned around'."

Much more here: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/03/12/veterans-doctors-alike-stranded-vet-choice-fails-pay-its-bills.html

[funesytrvl]

Thanks for posting this RV. I have tried to go to the VA several different times for things and I figure for me to stay of sane mind and body I just use  private health care. The VA to me isn't even and option anymore and I pretend they don't exist. I know some vets have had varying degrees of success with the system but I and several of my long time friends and work colleagues have had a dismal response from the SYSTEM!

I am fortunate enough to have the ability to seek other options of healthcare, but not all vets are and it pains me to read anything like this. For anyone whom is suicidal and has to wait six months for and appointment is heart breaking. That is the definition of failure in the VA. As for the payments to these outside the system providers, it doesn't surprise me in the least that this is happening. Tragic, like most things the VA touches. 

That's my story (experience) and I am sticking too it.

[Pieere]

Thanks RV for the information! just read the article! I had to cancel Appts. with the VCP Doctors due to weather this Winter! I couldn't afford to pay these doctors! I also can not afford to pay the co-pays of my Medicare plan! Did the Dept. Of Defense believe that every person who went in the military would not return home so they wouldn't be responsible for their healthcare?? Most likely the reason, there is not much of a reduction if not more veterans suicides keep happening!

[RV_]

Fun,

Like me you have alternatives. Many do not. I gave up on the VA too. Several of our veteran members here without a retirement use the VA in the Tyler area for virtually 100% of their medical care. For those that don't have alternatives it is indeed a tragedy. Those who say we should take cuts silently as the patriotic thing to do are fooling no one. With just a simple search for the costs of the war I found that one soldier in Afghanistan cost more than a million a year. But the obscene figure I found was:

"Air Conditioning Afghanistan Troops Costs $20 Billion Per Year; Cost of One Soldier is $1 Million a Year; Hotel California"

and

"American taxpayers have spent $1.46 trillion on wars abroad since September 11, 2001.

The Department of Defense periodically releases a “cost of war” report. The newly released version, obtained by the Federation of American Scientists Secrecy News blog, covers the time from the September 11th terrorist attacks through mid-2017."

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/defense-department-war-terror-has-cost-250-million-day-16-years-2608639

I think we can and should afford the medical care and full benefits that each military member earned.

That does not count the medical care and VA costs from them. We save a million a year for every troop we do not send. It also does not count the Black OPs costs of the civilian security Corporations.

" A truer measure of the wars’ total costs pegs them at between $4 trillion and $6 trillion. This fuller accounting includes “long-term medical care and disability compensation for service members, veterans and families, military replenishment and social and economic costs,” Harvard economist Linda Bilmes calculated in 2013."

That from Time Magazine 2015: http://time.com/3651697/afghanistan-war-cost/

 

Pieere,

I am sorry you are not getting the medical support you earned by your service. Remember you earned whether you serve one hitch or make a career out of the military like I did, we earned our benefits the hard way, we served, wherever and whenever, and our families had to go too or stay home and wait. I do not suffer fools gladly who try to make it some sort of welfare, who usually turn out to have never served - not enough pay and an uncomfortable life.

Yep it is a tragedy. We should have learned from Vietnam when the only US benefit turned out to be the billions that Brown and Root from Texas was awarded in government contracts from the then Senator Lyndon Johnson's lobbying efforts. (Read "Path to Power" by Robert Caro) Later as President LBJ gave much of the government contract work early on in the Vietnam war. Its successor Halliburton who along with the private security firms in black ops, mostly civilian, could make it double that today. I am sorry you get the brunt of the pain from those diverted funds. Brown and Rootn and Kellog Brown and Root, and Halliburton acquiring them all after President George HW bush had worked for them, and Halliburton with Dick Cheny as CEO are well documented for anyone who is interested. Wikipedia has a good synopsis of Brown and Root, Kellog, Halliburton here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halliburton

The cost of just one private security firm from 2004-2009 was:

"The total estimated costs for the Department’s contracts and task orders with just one of many, Blackwater, for Iraq were over $1 billion as of May 29, 2008."

https://oig.state.gov/system/files/124962.pdf

So what we do need to do is to write our congressmen and women, and vote for the ones that support Vets nationwide, and vote out the ones that don't. That is for each to research and decide on, not appropriate to discuss here. Read the above.

If one really wants to see how we got here through the best of intentions, starting with bringing electricity to the hardscrabble West Texas areas, and schools, to improve their economy, are detailed in all of the Pulitzer Prize winning Robert Caro books, each a large satisfying read. While it sounds boring, if after reading a quarter of the first book you can put it down, then do. Most won't be able to put it down as they are very easy reads. The essential four books are; "Path To Power," "Means Of Ascent," "Master Of The Senate," and "The Passage Of Power." I read them all while active duty. Johnson was a great statesman of his time, and served his constituency well.

My point is that the $500 dollar hammers are indeed gone. They now are $2000.00.

 

[Pieere]

 The Murfreesboro VA Health care has been very good up until last Junes cardiology appt! I made a choice for the Choice Program as I believe it has caused the VA to have to extend their Wait Time for Appointments! My own cardiologist at the VA left for some reason or other, he got replaced by another! The first appointment with him was not to my liking, will give him another chance and decide whether to go to the hospital administrator to ask for a different one! He never did the EKG or the basic evaluation the other Doc always did. He even forgot to renew my heart meds, i had to call the pharmacy administration to get it them!