An important national story continues to create buzz in Kansas City among a great many families of soldiers and those who support them. Take a look:
One TKC Reader Notes: "Does no one care about veterans?"
Here's the run down of tonight's most important story . . .
Crisis Hits Home . . .
VA inspection finds inadequate care in the death of KC Iraq War Vet
Another BOLD AND BRILLIANT statement from a TKC blog community denizen: "Those veterans would have been better off staying in Iraq and Afghanistan. We killed more of our own people than Bin Laden, Saddam, the Taliban and Isis did! What a gut churning statistic"
IG report: 300,000 vets died while waiting for health care at VA
The Crisis Continues . . .
Nearly 900,000 veterans have pending applications for health care at the VA
Developing . . .
Great, another blame Bush or blame Obama debate that we all lose.
ReplyDeleteWhat was that war over, again?
McClatchy Co stock rebounded to $1.21 today.
ReplyDeleteObama's running around Alaska with his selfie stick today.
ReplyDeleteTKC Reader - TKC blog community denizen
ReplyDeleteSo they send you sentence or paragraph instead of posting a comment?
Don't ask stupid questions.
ReplyDeleteWe Spoke to A Body Language Expert and She Says Beyoncé Has A Schoolgirl Crush on LeBron
ReplyDeleteWhat's TKC's contact info?
Mayor Sly James @MayorSlyJames
ReplyDeleteFroank White, Ronnie Burt, Kathy Nelson & Mi-A Parish #KansasCityChiefs kickoff luncheon!
He can't even spell Frank correctly.
ReplyDeleteSpelling Bitch
Deletejust dial 1-800-NIGGERS and he'll answer.
ReplyDeleteFroank White?
ReplyDeleteLooks like everyone's left the building here tonight.
ReplyDeleteNot happening here today. Only Tony's comments plunge protection team.
ReplyDeleteChiefs and Rams tied going into halftime
ReplyDeleteGood night. Last one out please turn off the lights.
ReplyDeletevery disappointing feedback Tony. you just as well fold it up pal
ReplyDeleteWell the gumment is running for cover in a case of bad timing. Congressman pretends concern. TV station jumps on the story, Feds dutifully react. But this is NOT NEW, and is a little OVERSTATED.
ReplyDeleteFIRST, the VA should have stopped putting ordinary veterans needing ordinary care in our World War II vintage FEDERAL Hospital system. Medicare and Medicaid are newer health inventions since the 1960s. More recent MEDICARE and MEDICAID should be taking care of our veterans along with everybody ELSE.
SECOND, These recent vets on waiting lists should have gotten care from local family doctors and hospitals-- paid by MEDICARE, or as last resort for the unemployed, MEDICAID. Most of us veterans got out of service, got jobs, and paid insuracne thru our employers.
Except for war wounds, VA is care of LAST RESORT....like medicaid which doens't ACTUALLYcare for them--they just pay the bills for the poor and underemployed.
VA hospitals should ONLY BE USED to treat SERVICE RELATED INJURIES and DISABILITIES, and CONDITIONS or UNEMPLOYABLE VETS due to wounds or mental health related to war.. So yes, THIS soldier with PTSD was a proper case for a Vet Psych bed.
LETS NOT OVERSENSATIONALIZE THIS. VA has reported they dont' keep tabs on waiting list people and many have presumably died off or gotten health care someplace else. People DO DIE of old age and DO get healthcare elsewhere under Medicare or Medicaid, clinics or private insurance. They're probably not dying at their front doors waiting for the VA.
Today, poor Americans can always apply for Medicaid and get quality care. Even private insurance now under Obamacare. We aging Vietnam era boomers and our remaining WWII/Korean War parents are old enough to get MEDICARE. And if younger, hospitals are REQUIRED to take (but not always KEEP) very sick people through their ER's regardless of ability to pay. That's by federal law under Reagan.
Is the VA OVERWHELMED with older WWII and Korean War vets dying in large numbers? Vietnam and 2 Iraq war vets forming lines?
The real solution is to do what I suggest. Service related needing special veteran care, like for PTSD, leave em at the VA's. But everybody else in the country needs MEDICARE FOR ALL, like most modern countries in the western world. Many AMericans just can't afford overpriced private insurance, payment a month in advance. Congress has been kicking VA and general health care down the road for DECADES.
Never believe long term Congressmen who now are pretending they've discovered there's suddenly a big problem. NOTHING SUDDEN about it! They've had no interest in fixing it. They've had nearly FIFTY YEARS to move ordinary heallth care needs of veterans to Medicare which has been around since the authorized by Congress in 1966.
Why didnt' Congress move regular health care for vets OUT out of the VA, which was a postwar promise to vets for free lifetime care if they need it? I think most of us vets didn't use it.
And if I read the story right, this soldier was on a waiting list for 30 days after contact? It takes that long to get into a drug/alcohol program too. Psych-dependency issues are easy treatments, like going in to get gall bladder surgery. Sometimes it NEVER takes.
If you want to blame somebody, blame the military services which spend a lot of time turning our sons into TRAINED KILLERS, but dont' spend much time when they come home, fixing them after they broke them! I'm sure soldiers want to get discharged as quickly as possible when they comeback to the world...but are they ready?
The military should know a lot about PTSD and Oorah training and should be able to spot it before our soldiers get their DD Form 214.
Medicare is stingy partial pay on too damn many procedures/supplies/bed stays. Supplemental policies were crammed in onto the elder/disabled scaled by income.
DeleteSo my USAF dad who became FD for 28 years NEVER used the VA because he left that for others who maybe didn't have a 'good' union pension like his. The minor service injury got more serious with age, and his own FD plan, then Medicare plus Humana paid well enough. Just wonder if the data is/should be made known of the vets who never used available benefits at the VA.
Thirty years ago I saw stats on infection rates/surgery survivor rates/readmissions/in care accident numbers and some VA sites were reported in certain criteria as fail bigtime. Guess my Dad was aware but never said the VA might be somewhat F'd.
Everythings Frosty
ReplyDeleteKC and USA = Detroit
ReplyDeleteJolie Justus @joliejustus
ReplyDeleteHappy 70th birthday Michael Burnes! Thank you for 40+ years of fabulous fun & giving back to KC. @MissieBs
shame on the VA for this digrace.
ReplyDeleteCan't Sly do something? Take a look how tough I am selfie or something?
ReplyDeleteWhat about Mensa?
ReplyDeleteMaybe Circo and Glover and Jan Cakes can step in and solve it.
ReplyDeleteCerner and Accenture got the new, multi-billion-dollar DOD EHR that won't be operational — if all goes to plan — until around 2022.
ReplyDeleteVA’s record of waste, fraud and abuse keeps piling up.
ReplyDeleteSounds like the twin sibling of the James Administration
Veterans leech off our country and return nothing. Let 'em rot.
ReplyDeleteLike Byron ^^^^^^^... I am a Veteran and don't use the VA. FUCK YOU!
ReplyDelete11:19 A lowlife comment. Hate away, but don't forget that veterans shed blood, sweat and more so you can freely show your ass with your mighty mouth.
ReplyDelete11:19 A lowlife comment. Hate away, but don't forget that veterans shed blood, sweat and more so you can freely show your ass with your mighty mouth.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who has ever been in a VA facility, knows exactly what the problem is. The entire VA infrastructure has been turned over to NIGGERS. Behind the reception desk, to the surgery departments, it's all NIGGERS and if you happen to be white, well, just forget about you!! These incompetent animals can't run a 7-11 store and they're in charge of health services??
ReplyDeleteAnon 1:38
ReplyDeleteI'm a disabled veteran, & I don't use the VA.
TKC Scholars
Are we gonna get a like button for the comments section?
ReplyDeleteMedicare my ass! First you have to be of age to receive medicare or medicaid and in Missouri unless you are turning out bastard kids or an old fart you are not getting any of either no matter how poor you are. 90 percent of male vets do not qualify for any program other than the VA in Missouri. PERIOD!
ReplyDeleteThe VA is suffering from the one problem that no one expects and that is too much money and too little oversight. Right now you can drive out to the KC VA and see millions of dollars in solar panels being installed over parking spaces, yet drive to the emergency room area and you will not find a single parking space reserved for the emergency room patients. Instead the spaces are reserved for bureaucrats. Patients are require to park hundreds of yards from the facility and walk while the entire circumference around the VA building proper is reserved parking for bureaucrats.
KC VA insists that they do not have waiting lists. BULLSHIT! I have been waiting for needed surgery for 23 months. It took me 2 1/2 years and a congressman to get my first appointment.
Medications can be a nightmare. Most generic pills (the VA co-pays are near 3 times higher than Wallmart's generics) are available, but if you need a basic medication that is not in the VA formulary the chances of getting it approved are low. This is the only medical organization in the world where a pharmacist dictates whether you get medication or not.
Now while they fucking kill their patients with bureaucratic red tape they are opening new clinics and hiring more bureaucrats. In the mean time damn near nothing has happened to fix what Vets have been bitching about for years.
Single Vets are really fucked when it comes to major medical care. First you have to realize that the VA uses outdated protocols because many of their doctors are old farts who went to medical school in the dark ages. Many others were sued so much that they eventually went to the VA where their incompetence is covered by the government. If you doubt just get the name of a few VA surgeons and go to casenet and search for civil actions. The remainder of the doctors assigned to the surgical services are actually residents who have little to no authority in the decision making process.
The VA put people under for what should be out patient surgeries with local anaesthesia. A good example is carpel tunnel surgeries. In modern medicine carpel tunnel surgeries are an out patient procedure mostly done by plastic surgeons. The procedure and all that goes with it generally takes less than an hour and the patient is able to drive home. NOT SO at the VA where person is put under. Then he must have a driver, but it can not be any driver. You can not hire anyone, even a cab. It has to be someone the VA calls a "responsible person". They will never tell you what that means. If you are single and do not have a wife or grown kids to drive you the VA will refuse the procedure. You will not get an exception There are a shit load of veterans in this very boat. The VA claims it is dangerous for you to take a cab after surgery so you don’t get needed surgery. They wont provide skilled nursing, but they will withhold medical care if you don't kiss their ass on this. Mind you this is the same fucking government that is perfectly happy sending you to get your ass shot off in a war, with no nanny to take care of you, but a cab ride is high risk.
I could write a book on the endless bullshit and lack of care at the VA but it is never going to change. Needed change would require Congress actually rolling up their sleeves and fixing shit rather than just tossing money at the VA. Money that will ultimately be spent on total crap rather than helping resolve patient issues.
There is an additional issue with the VA and that is it should not be just for poor Veterans. VA care was promised millions of Veterans. It is not a handout or entitlement. It is a benefit that is owed every honorable Vet. If the public wanted to whine about it they should have whined when sons and daughters were serving, being injured and killed. The vets earned every bit of their benefits the hard way. No one is doing them a favor by providing healthcare. The sad part is that if the Veterans had delivered the same quality of service as the VA we would probably all be speaking German right now.
ReplyDeleteRewarding incompetence by ignoring what is happening with the VA is just not acceptable. The VA has over 7000 facilities and few of them can meet muster with billions of tax payer dollars. This isn't because they don't have enough money. It is because they don't have integrity or a commitment to duty in their leadership. I hope the veterans refuse to accept the status quo and keep the pressure on until someone starts listening.
Althought I you not use the colorful language of 4:53AM he is at least partially correct. I have personally sat at the VA and watched black employees call in other blacks ahead of me when service was supposed to be first come, first serve or by timed appointments.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who has had to wait at any government facility has experienced the (racist) routine gets it.
Unfortunately, the modern-day lionization of veterans has itself gone too far. In Washington, this knee-jerk support has resulted in policy decisions that will hurt both vets and the larger public over time.
ReplyDeleteSince 2000, the Department of Veterans Affairs has seen its budget nearly triple.
Lionization? That is the kind of terminology you'd expect from someone whose greatest call to duty was involved the gay brownie scouts.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.duffelblog.com/2015/09/make-a-wish-dying-vet/
ReplyDelete