Obama wants to charge disabled veterans for treatment at VA facilities
CNN
Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance.
But the proposal would be “dead on arrival” if it’s sent to Congress, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, said.
Murray used that blunt terminology when she told Shinseki that the idea would not be acceptable and would be rejected if formally proposed. Her remarks came during a hearing before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs about the 2010 budget.
No official proposal to create such a program has been announced publicly, but veterans groups wrote a pre-emptive letter last week to President Obama voicing their opposition to the idea after hearing the plan was under consideration.
The groups also cited an increase in “third-party collections” estimated in the 2010 budget proposal — something they said could be achieved only if the Veterans Administration started billing for service-related injuries.
Asked about the proposal, Shinseki said it was under “consideration.”
“A final decision hasn’t been made yet,” he said.
Currently, veterans’ private insurance is charged only when they receive health care from the VA for medical issues that are not related to service injuries, like getting the flu.
Charging for service-related injuries would violate “a sacred trust,” Veterans of Foreign Wars spokesman Joe Davis said. Davis said the move would risk private health care for veterans and their families by potentially maxing out benefits paying for costly war injury treatments.
A second senator, North Carolina Republican Richard Burr, said he agreed that the idea should not go forward.
“I think you will give that up” as a revenue stream if it is included in this April’s budget, Burr said.
Murray said she’d already discussed her concerns with the secretary the previous week.
“I believe that veterans with service-connected injuries have already paid by putting their lives on the line,” Murray said in her remarks. “I don’t think we should nickel and dime them for their care.”
Eleven of the most prominent veterans organizations have been lobbying Congress to oppose the idea. In the letter sent last week to the president, the groups warned that the idea “is wholly unacceptable and a total abrogation of our government’s moral and legal responsibility to the men and women who have sacrificed so much.”
The groups included The American Legion, Disabled American Veterans, Military Order of the Purple Heart, Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Wild Thing’s comment………..
This is just UNBELIEVABLE even to consider it !! To even suggest or think about doing this is unfathomable. Words cannot express how angry I am.
First I am shocked that communist Patty Murray spoke up. I almost fell off my chair. I’ll tell you, it’s one strange day when I agree with Patty Murray. Even stranger when she is to the right of a democratic President.
One of the sacred trusts that a grateful nation gives to the men and women who choose to place their bodies between the rest of us and “war’s desolation” is that the wounds and ailments they receive during their service will be treated by that grateful nation. To try to outsource that obligation is a violation of that trust.
If this plan were to ever be implemented, it would be very difficult for a veteran, especially one with service related medical problems, to actually get private insurance.
What’s next, charge them for their bullets and helmets?
Talk about demoralizing the military, which he clearly despises and does not see a need for.
This is outrageous, beyond belief outrageous. That this idea is even broached as a possibility shows just how powerful they THINK they are. They are counting on us sputtering and FURIOUS, but then doing nothing in response.
There IS a tipping point. They will eventually drop that deciding feather on that camel’s back. And if Obama does this, then this would be it. Obama’s arrogance and contempt is overwhelming .
I will be surprised if this gets passed out in the open. It’s completely indefensible. They’d bury it in an Obama bill if they really wanted to go after it. That way it would get passed without open discussion or debate.
B.Hussein Obama is despicable ! He is a lot like the terrorists, absolutely everything he does destroys something.
Obama’s war is revenge on America and everything we stand for. Our military men and women have given us freedom. Obama wants that taken away.
You don’t charge Veterans for medical care. They worked long and hard for us, so they deserve a break. And many, even after working for many years, had their private insurance taken from them at retirement because companies were budget cutting. Again, here comes the incompetence and immaturity as a leader showing through Obamanation. He is in way over his head and he’s losing ground.
Expendable, then and now!!! Unfortunately that is the mentality of the left.
Use up the life force of their fellow Americans as their protectors or as pawns in their political strategies then discard them like used toilet paper when they can no longer fend for themselves. Locally budget cuts have taken hospital care away leaving the VA center as an outpatient care facility, if you need hospital inpatient care you have to go to a regional hospital, a burden on the patient and the family.
They can always cut corners. “hospital workers have been retrained on the insulin pens and are now required to place a label on each pen showing that it’s only to be used for one patient. “
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090311/NEWS03/303119965
or use euthanasia!!!
This is his health care reform in action. I did a post on what his plan would mean to seniors with rationing of there health care. Contrast these ideas with the health care these political leeches of society receive.
Bob A.
When you get disabled in the service you cannot buy civilian health insurance when you leave the service. No company will sell to someone with a serious disability. So that leaves the veteran with the VA or military facilities as his primary care. Some veterans qualify for Medicare and that helps.
Obama promised all Americans would have exactly the same health care he has as president. I knew of course that that was a bullshit statement. But this attempt now to make disabled veterans pay for treatment for their service injuries shows that Obama relly considers the military to be unworthy of any of his respect.
Illegals get free treatment, terrorists at Gitmo get free treatment and prisoners in jail get free treatment. But disabled veterans get a bill and the shaft from Messiah Obama.
Seems like only yesterday but it may have been the day before that Mrs. 0 (that’s a zero, not an oh) was telling the service families that she and her husband would do all they could for them.
My father was a disabled veteran of WWII (4th infantry division) and he had a kidney removed and later his bladder removed at the VA hospital in Asheville, NC. I was there with my mother for all the consultations with the doctors and took him back many times for follow up visits. When he lived with me in Virginia we went to the VA hospital in Salem. In my opinion, he had the very best care. His surgeons at Asheville were from the Duke University School of Medicine and I could not ask for better. He never had any private insurance until AARP the last couple of years. I took him to the Asheville (Oteen, NC) hospital 30 days before he died in 1995. My experience with VA hospitals is that old but it was all very good.
This week the comic strip Mallard Fillmore, which I usually like was very critical of VA Medicine. I started to take issue with them but thought I’d wait. I’m sure somebody here can evaluate VA hospitals with more currency than I can but they extended my Dad’s life by at least 20 years and it would be hard for me to be unappreciative.
Horace – I hated the VA hospital system back in the early 70’s. Did not use it for many years.
I have been using the VA now for about a dozen years and I am mostly happy with it. I have had several minor surgeries that were done very well. The VA has changed a lot. Their attitude has changed a lot.
The VA seems to me to be as good or bad as civilian medical care. You always take your chances and I have encountered some poor quality civilian docs and some poor quality VA docs. Most of my experiences with doctors has been positive. Overall I would rate the VA highly.
This makes as much sense as charging a soldier who gets wounded in action, because he couldn’t complete his tour of duty.
Great policies of the Zero Administration.
Lynn, I agree, he is messing with something or thinking about messing with something that will show him what hitting the wall with an idea is like. He will be told in no uncertian terms he cannot get away with messing with our Veterans.
Jack, good grief, thank you for the link.
Bob A., exactly, and that is a good point about the political leeches.
Tom, this is so horrible, and you are absolutely right. All those you mentioned getting it for free and to treat our Veterans like this is the worst thing imaginable.Your right Tom, it speaks loud and clear how he feels about our military.
Horace, I have heard both, good and bad about the VA. It seems it depends on where it is, disabled Vet I know in Minn. gets terrible treatment, but he also says the attitudes there even when making an appt. are disrespectful. So it could be just that particular VA hospital.
Then I have been told by several disabled Vets how they have really liked the care they have received at their VA hospitals. Some in Calif. some in Nevada and then here in Florida.
One of my Uncles was a disabled Veteran.My other Uncles and men in my family most of them were not injured. He lost his leg in the Chosin. That was a long time ago and he had a lot of trouble not with the VA but at the area his leg was taken off. He always had good things to say about the VA hospitals mostly and he lived in AZ. where he went to them there. He had something like 5 operations over the years on the remaining part of his leg that kept getting cancerous from the prosthesis he wore. Now they make those so much better then they did back then when my Uncle was alive. I am so grateful for the way they keep making them better all the time. That photo of President Bush had me crying, to see that they were jogging together like that and the improvements made was so awesome.
I agree with Tom, from what I have heard it is like if I pick a bad doctor or get lucky and get a good one just as a civilian.
Years ago in Calif. I worked with trying to get the VA to hear the Nam vets that were suffering from Agent Orange. We did a lot of work to get the politicans to hear their very real physical complaints and to get some things done to get the Vets voices heard. It was a lot of work but worth it and many now get excellent care as they should have from the beginning.
Mark, I agree, and I wish we could say Obama is just stupid but that is not even the reason. It shows when he walks near our troops, he really does all he can not to look them in the eye, he does not reach out to them like Bush did as he would jump up on a box and go over it to shake hands and say thank you. Obama is one that his hate for our military is deep seeded.
I must agree about the straw and the camel. There will come a point if he doesn’t back the frak off, and that particular group of people is the exact wrong one to trigger. Not to mention, how could he possibly think that the ACTIVE DUTY troops would stand against the veterans in this? There’s an awful lot of seething going on already, trust me.
I had a Barackshevik tell me with a straight face, “Your DAV care is socialized medicine….” These Barackobats are from Uranus!
It’s not like there’s no precedent. Military retirees now have an HMO-style plan, whereby the retiree pays a co-pay for care or prescription meds. We can choose a doctor from a PPO list. If we want the “better” plan, with the lower deductible, we can pay a premium (monthly, quarterly or annually). But no optical or dental coverage. And, when we’re 62, we are transferred to MediCare.
Admittedly, it’s better than nothing, but it’s not as good as a lot of other plans out there. And, the point is, when most of us made the career decision, this ain’t what was on the table!
Is it unpatriotic of me to be experiencing “buyer’s remorse?”
cmblake6, your right, these straw and the camels keep coming don’t they. I wish those doing this, like Obama and those agreeing with him, I wish they loved America like the rest of us. I just don’t see how they could, they don’t do things in their agenda that shows they do. It really is so sad.
Obama wants to charge everyone for everything! Since he is a millionaire, perhaps then we should charge him rent for using our White House!
Obama the Va. didn’t put there! the bankers are the ones who like him!
To help a President relate to what our troops goes through, he (or she) should be required to serve some military time in his/her life as part of the qualifications to be Commander in Chief.
In Obama’s case, he lacks this credential and it clearly shows. McCain wouldn’t ever have this idiotic idea cross his mind.
This guy (Obama) is so wrong for our country. He’s a pompous wuss.