Seth Moulton’s VA Visit
Apologies if Jonn already wrote about this, but this kind of pissed me off. I wrote this for the paying home, but wanted to share here too.
Seth Moulton is a former marine with combat experience in Iraq over four tours there. He got a hernia lifting weights, and so he went to the VA. That might not seem out of the orginary, but Seth doesn’t have to go, because his day job provides health care coverage. In fact, he’s a Freshman Member of Congress from Massachusetts. So he went to the VA in DC. To phrase it charitably, it did not go well:
“I went to the VA, showed up and checked in at the front desk, and about 30 minutes later, they told me that they had no record of me. They couldn’t prove that I was a veteran. But they would consider taking me as a humanitarian case,” he said.
Well, the seemless transition isn’t going well, but let’s see how he did after that….
He said he did not identify himself as a member of Congress, since he was just going there as a veteran. Moulton said he didn’t have his VA card on him, but had his license and social security number.
“More than enough things to put into their computer system, supposedly the world-renowned VA computerized medical records system,” he said.
Moulton suggested that the front desk employees call the VA hospital in Boston, where he had previously received care. After eventually getting through, the Boston VA said it would fax something down.
He said employees in D.C. then questioned aloud whether their fax machine even worked. In addition, he said veterans in the waiting room next to him had been waiting there for “hours.”
After a surgery, he was prescribed the powerful painkiller Percocet, as well as Advil. However, after he was sent home with medication, he discovered he had just been given Advil.
“And so I opened up the bottle and took a pill. And sometime later, it was still hurting an awful lot, and so I went back for a second one and realized that I didn’t have Percocet. I just had ordinary Advil. Of course, the pharmacy was closed at that point, so I was out of luck,” he said.
He added, “If that’s the care they’re giving to a United States congressman, you can imagine what the average veteran is getting at many of the VA facilities across the country.”
I’ve also been to the VA in DC. It was horrible. I could barely walk, so I went there for an MRI for herniated discs, which I already knew I had. This wasn’t years after service, it was literally 3 days after coming off terminal leave. I still remember the date, September 2. After an interminable wait the lady finally said that yes, I needed an “emergency MRI” and that she could schedule that for me……on October 23. Literally 7 weeks. Again, I could not walk. Later they pulled the secret waiting list game on me, where she said I would have to call back in a week to try to schedule, because the next 30 days were booked solid, and they had to see OEF people in 30 days or they got in trouble. Exasperated I told her that was fine, that I had the VA Secretaries phone number in my cell from when I met him overseas, and I would call him and see what he thought. Miraculously a spot opened up.
After that I never went back to that VA again.
Then I moved to Indiana. I’ve gone to the VA probably 10 times here. The longest wait I have had for a visit to be scheduled was 72 hours. Either this is the best VA in the country, or the VA just isn’t allocating resources properly to match where the need is.
So today I find this letter essentially blaming Moulton:
While I have no reason to doubt Representative Seth Moulton’s story (“In effort to fix woes in VA care, Moulton taps own experience,” Page A1, June 5), his comments would hold more weight if he also addressed the performance of Congress. It is, after all, Congress that authorized two wars and then expanded eligibility for VA health care without providing the corresponding funds. Perhaps the new congressman could offer his critique of the do-nothing Congress in as public a forum as he offers his critique of the Veterans Affairs health system.
Only when Moulton mentions the failures of Congress to provide funding for increased veteran services can he be seen as an objective observer. Until then he is a part of the problem.
Devote time to improving the VA, but acknowledge that it will happen only as Congress cleans up its act.
William F. O’Brien, Eastham
The writer is a retired chief of VA mental health services in Dayton, Ohio.
Seth Moulton has been in office just over 6 months. VA budgets are done a year in advance. Just how exactly should he be held accountable? Second of all, how exactly would increased funding fix someone putting Advil in a Percoset bottle?
I’ve been to VA funding hearings. Hell, I’ve even testified in VA funding hearings (both appropriations and authorizations.) The VA comes in with a budget request, and then Congress tweaks it. But I VIVIDLY remember hearings in like 2004 or 2005 when then-House Chairman Steve Buyer (not my favorite person) absolutely laid into the VA people because they had used numbers from 2000 to figure out how many patients would enter the VA that year. They used figures from before the war, to determine how many people would show up. The VA got every dime they asked for, and then came back and had supplemental requests when they realized their budget was off by monumental amounts.
Blaming Congress is easy, almost as easy as blaming the VA. And I’m no huge defender of the Congress. But if someone comes to you and says I need $100 for a hotel room, and then comes back 2 days later to say it cost $456, do you blame the person who gave you what you asked for? Or the person who didn’t bother to figure out the actual cost? Look at the Denver VA. The Congress didn’t solicit the bids for building the facllity, the VA did that. And we’re at almost 3x the projected cost. How can you blame Congress for actually showing deference to the budget request of the people who are supposed to be the subject matter experts?
A friend of mine who is a subject matter expert adds this:
VA Budgets:
FY 2001 – year the war start $48.6 million (https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22897.pdf )
FY 2015 – $158 million
The budget has more than tripled in the last decade and a half. Yes the load on the system has increased, but especially since 2006 (the year under Buyer they had to go back and ask for a supplemental because they almost ran out of money) VA has gotten generous budget increases every year, even as the rest of the government faced sequestration cuts and reductions to operations.
A better question to ask VA is why their Central Office numbers of executives in Washington, DC have grown exponentially while actual caregivers in the field have seen a more deliberate and slow increase. VA is spending their large budgets on a team of people to argue for why they need more money, not on people to treat the ones who have been injured in service.
Category: Politics
I wouldn’t even go to the VA for a free Blow Job.
/excuse my french to the Ladies of TAH.
I’m telling you bro, it’s all in the VA you go to. Mine in Indy is freaking awesome. I had a strep throat and my civilian doctor couldn’t see me for 2 weeks, I went to the VA with no appointment and got seen in under an hour. I might not have them do surgery on me, but minor medical stuff, I am all about the VA.
Bingo, amigo.
When I was in SE AZ, the VA system there was quite good across the board. Where I am now, the medical staff is pretty good – but the admin side sucks The Grand Wazoo.
Well, they would if they could figure out how. I wouldn’t trust their admin side to be able to spell “cat” if I spotted them “C” and “T”.
Ditto here in Florida (Bay Pines). NEVER had any issue whatsoever. Denver’s VA has done me fine as well, but I’ve only had to see them twice.
But yeah, I think it’s as much WHERE you’re going to see VA as what you’re seeing them for.
BTW, I’ve written about those who see the VA as well- so many of the guys that go in act like complete effing a$$holes. Some I’ve seen deserve bad treatment- they’re treating the caregivers even worse.
I have been getting VA care since I was discharged. The Sacramento va has been good to me. I do have one negative, I had a severely bad pinched nerve in my arm that need a minor surgery. When discharged I was given no painkillers. I asked my wife I the car if she had them (thank god this wasn’t after we left).
There was no pharmacy check off on the pre op forms. My wife being the saint that she is, secured the meds and home we went. Other then that, I have no complaints on the care i have received.
Mine where I live is very good about getting you in. They have active programs for vets and two auxiliary offices where you can be seen.
I found them to be very efficient, and since I got my little pamphlet just last week, and my new card a couple weeks before that, I have to believe it really depends on which one you go to.
“While I have no reason to doubt Representative Seth Moulton’s story his comments would hold more weight if he also addressed the performance of Congress.”
Making counter accusations after being caught doing stupid s#!t has been around as long as humans have been able to articulate speech.
Still does not make it right.
I count myself blessed that I have never had to go to VA – yet.
(Any word on how good, or bad, the SLC, UT VA is?)
@ B. WOODMAN, Et Alii:
Once you’re in the system, the Salt Lake City VAMC seems to work pretty well.
But, you have to wait for MONTHS to get your first appointment, and be assigned a Primary Care Provider.
Also, they’re critically short of physicians, so even in the Emergency Room, you’re likely to be treated by a nurse, instead of a doctor.
My initial intake was done by a Physicians Assistant in the SLC VAMC Blue Clinic.
My Primary Care Provider is a nurse at the Community Based Outpatient Clinic in Roosevelt, Utah.
When I have an appointment in Salt Lake City, they furnish me with a room at the Ramada Inn, meals in the mess hall (or a sack lunch when the mess hall is closed), and pay me mileage for my gasoline.
All in all, now that I’m finally in the system, I’m quite pleased with my care at the George E. Whalen VA Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
My team sergeant just got a job there. I’ll update this when I ask him.
He’s been going there for a while as a patient, and seems to have no complaints, so I’ll ask how it is on the inside.
The VBA is run through SLC.
They suck.
The VHA is run through Denver.
They suck.
But on a health care level, I have heard SLC is not bad.
Well for me this is indicative of what’s coming for the ACA as well. Civilian small, rural and regional hospitals are being killed by the ACA. Those folks who have an option for VA care might find they need to take it if their local hospital closes its doors. We are in danger of losing over 300 civilian hospitals as well.
I realize that’s not a problem for the VA to resolve but in my opinion it’s indicative of the state of healthcare in the nation.
Local areas might be great at providing service but if the system is hemorrhaging money it won’t be long before it all starts to get hurt by that. That’s true of the VA and true of the overall system.
In the VA it’s unacceptable for appointments to be delayed seven weeks for herniated disks…it’s unacceptable that the computer system can’t identify you based on your social security number. They collect and lose this data regularly, why can’t they seem to actually use the data?
In the civilian side the issue becomes the mix of payees, those who have insurance are preferable to those who have medicare/medicaid because the government thinks lower reimbursements is how to control costs. Here’s hoping they don’t try to apply that system to the already beleaguered VA.
I’m curious as to what priority group he’s in. Additionally, I had no idea that a veteran could get surgery for a non-service connected condition that happened years after separation.
You can sometimes, depending on availability etc. I can because I am over 50 percent which is I believe the threshold. That said, they usually bill my insurance for anything not service connected, but then waive whatever the insurance doesn’t cover.
TSO: 50% is the threshold for copayment waiver (they’ll still bill any private health insurance you happen to have, though). You’re eligible for VA medical care if you have pretty much any service-connected condition; you may or may not have a copayment, depending on your income and your overall VA rating. Those non-service-connected vets who have incomes below income threshold levels, receiving a VA pension, or who are deemed by the VA to be “catastrophically disabled” also appear to be eligible for VA medical care. See
http://www.va.gov/healthbenefits/resources/priority_groups.asp
The VA may “ration” care if money is tight. My guess is that they’ll start at Pri Group 8 and work up if/when that happens.
Good info, wasn’t sure how that worked. To be honest, I avoid working VA issues and try to stick to our other three planks of National Security, Americanism and Children and Youth. VA just upsets me usually, and as a happy consumer of theirs, I always feel weird bashing them.
I echo TSO’s sentiment, Hondo. Thanks for the info.
The issue with his being seen was in verifying his service. As he was not enrolled in the VA already for healthcare, he needed to be enrolled. Part of that is the requirement to show proof of service, which he did not have, and the system used to verify Service with DoD is quite frankly a piece of shit. Since his service could not be verified immediately, he was still able to get treatement for emergency care only until such time that his service was able to be verified, and his elligibilty group determined.
He was not denied service, and no I am not looking up his information for those crackpots who think that I do.
I agree! Unless there is some “new rule” that was enacted since I was in.
“Enhanced Eligibility For Health Care Benefits
Veterans who served in a theater of combat operations after November 11, 1998 are eligible for an extended period of eligibility for health care for 5 years post discharge….Combat Veterans who were discharged or released from active service on or after January 28, 2003, are eligible to enroll in the VA health care system for 5 years from the date of discharge or release.”
http://www.va.gov/healthbenefits/apply/returning_servicemembers.asp
Which still doesn’t seem to qualify?!
AHH Good Old Eastham, where people like Billy O’Brien forget they are Irish and act like a ruling class.
Pinkies and fat hands always extended.
I have only ever gone to the clinic in Bloomington, IN and the hospital in Indianapolis. I have been pleased with all my experiences. I have received good care and honest, straight up explanations. I can’t even bitch about my disability exams. Great caring and humane folks.
I would like to think the VA Hospital system is simply reflective of the differences you see in hospitals from big cities to small towns…
Procedural question: I never thought about going to a VA facility because I’m retired and get TriCare. I just assume that VA was for Vets that did not get TriCare. I am 60% and get CRSC. Is there any reason I should ever go to a VA facility?
Not if you like your doctor. My doctor though has a long wait time, so for something like the flu or a sore throat etc, I can get right into the VA. At the least it never hurts to register, just in case you need to go on short notice. When I had kidney stones they took me right in immediately, so I was pretty thankful that I had done so.
Hmmm. Thanks. Vets like the facility in this Hood so maybe I’ll do that esp since the civ clinic near me is only open 2 days a week. Do you just go to the facility and register?
SJ: might have to go to the VARO to register initially – been just long enough since I did that here that I no longer remember for sure (I had to go there for something, but I’m not sure now if that was why). I’d ask the folks at the local VA clinic what you needed to do to sign up; they should be able to tell you.
Sorry: VARO – VA Regional Office.
Might be able to do so at the nearest VA hospital (not clinic) also, but I’m not sure.
I looked at the link you posted earlier and you can do it on line (Form 10-10) and/or drop into the local out patient clinic and sign up. Sounds easy. I have a call into them though because I’m afraid, as a Priority 1, I’d be bumping some Vet who really needs it. If they tell me that won’t happen, then I’ll do it.
Rgr. Won’t clutter the system and take space from Vets who have no other option but TSO’s point is well take as a backup. Thanks all.
Might also be a bennie if you travel outside your home TRICARE region and need care, or if you split time between 2 TRICARE regions. I understand that can have adverse financial consequences under TRICARE, particularly under PRIME. I don’t think the VA has those same issues.
I’m an old fart so Medicare is first pay so the region thing isn’t a factor for me. It was for my late wife who was under Prime.
Veterans and soldiers get put aside yet Michelle 0bama gets cosmetic surgery at Walter Reed on the taxpayers dime.
http://www.coachisright.com/the-real-cost-of-michelle-obamas-taxpayer-funded-plastic-surgery/
Well, I would take those allegations with a grain of salt. The National Enquirer is not exactly known for sticking to the truth in all cases.
I liked were he waived his right to privacy and the VA still refused citing privacy laws.
Dr. Carolyn Clancy sucks as a leader.
Moultons intent was to have a result from that visit he could preach about. That much is obvious. He deliberately went out of his way to make the encounter problematic.
I still want to know what the hell he was doing in a VA facility in the first place seeking treatment for an injury that should not have been covered.
Actually, Dave – under current law, if he’s served in a combat zone (e.g., in the CENTCOM AOR) during the last 5 years or has a service-connected condition, he’s eligible for VA healthcare. We can thank the good Clintoon Administration for the former – that became law in 1998 during Bosnia. (Congress has expanded the window of eligibility to 5 years since then; originally the entitlement was for a shorter period of time.)
Yeah, that doesn’t make a helluva lot of sense to me either. But it’s the law. Go figure.
Thanks HONDO, my information shows he could have not been in a combat zone since 2008. My math skills are adequate enough tell that is beyond even the 5 year period.
Lifting weights in a gym 7 years later is hardly a reason for VA assistance. This kind of thing goes on all the time. It has to stop.
If he has an overall rating of 50% or more, he’s eligible for treatment for any medical condition he has, service-connected or not.
That is exactly what I am talking about. I can get a 50% with the VA on PTSD alone. Throw in a health record with 30% hearing loss 30 years ago, right leg injury, back injury, and several needles in the ass from a trip to San Juan and I can get to the 100 mark easy enough.
We have to stop this shit. Being a Disabled Veteran used to mean something.
I tend to agree, Dave.
IMO, the VA owes a vet treatment for service-connected conditions; if they’re 100% disabled; or if they’re a former POW. Beyond that, it’s a freebie.
We’ve come to like our freebies. But today Uncle Sam is freaking broke and can’t afford to give away free stuff any more.
Maybe they ought to cut back on cell phone handouts as well as handing our money hand over fist to illegal aliens, I see that as a good start!
I don’t give a shit where they start. There are too many veterans who are collecting disability for things they should not be.
We need to clean up our own house and knock this off. Or, we can start handing out extra money for hurt feelings and issue everyone a puppy when they graduate from boot camp.
I concur with that, but what the Government hands out to welfare flunkies and illegal aliens makes the VA budget look tame!
I find it refreshing, in an odd sort of way, that an elected official has seen through experience,first hand no less, into what a goatfuck the VA has manifested itself.
It begins with “V” and ends with “A” and everything else in between in my state sucks ass. And they (Big VA) know it.
Good for him.
I hope he follows through and makes a difference.
I can’t help but wonder if advil ended up in a bottle labeled percocet, whose pocket the real percocets walked out of the VA in since I’d presume advils don’t get inventoried as closely, and how many per day/week this drug dealer at the VA is getting away with.
I know exactly were those pills went!
Holy crap … the VA in DC sounds alot like the VA in NYC.
Only difference is Oxy, Hydro, and Perc flies off the shelf in the pharmacy and you can buy it on the side walk outside!
I am rated and service conneted. Since March I have been trying to get the VA to properly develop a course of action (COA) for a serious neuro condition (service connected).
Last week at a VA neuro exam (4th), I was asked again … so why are you here today?
RUSM?
My private surgeon developed a COA in less than 7 days! Surgery next week!
Thanks VA for nothing, including billing my private insurance for every single visit and every single service!
I have by and large gotten OK treatment at VA but my last check-up cost me $350 – they billed my insurance company who charged me for using out of plan…as long as I have a job I can’t afford VA.
Going to the VA actually costs me time and money!
If I were to testify on the Hill, no doubt they would NOT believe my stories.
All of which have been documented for chapter 13 of my book entitled “FU and KMRIA … It IS Not Me … It IS Everyone Else”.
MCPO: Reminder to self to light some candles next week in your behalf. A not-for-long lawyer will probably try to blow them out.
I’m currently dealing with the Portland VA in Oregon. For the last two months, I’ve been trying to get in for a series of tests to see if and how bad of a TBI I had from 2004, as well as a reassessment of my PTS.
I was told that it would expedite matters for me to get a CAT scan and MRI at my local hospital. Of course, the VA said it would be out of my own pocket because I wasn’t using one of their facilities. But, I should call back next week to schedule an appointment.
That’s all I have been getting is “Please call back next week so we can schedule you an appointment.”
Yes, I understand that EVERY copy of me medical jacket disappeared from all six places it was supposed to be stored, but they’re treating me like I’m a frakking faker! No, scratch that, fakers would probably have already had the tests and be collecting 100% service-connected disability with back pay.
@ FLAGWAVER, Et Alii:
When I was in Viet Nam, and had my thirty day special leave to visit Israel and the United States, I stopped at the VA in Portland, Oregon, where they examined me and gave me medicine, after which I continued on to my unit in Viet Nam.
Just an interesting memory.
My limited VA experience was after I retired in 2012, had a physical at the Tucson clinic for disability evaluation. I have to say it was as thorough an exam as my retirement physical was, everyone was professional, courteous, and I came away impressed. I didn’t seen any unhappy people anywhere in the clinic and it was pretty damn full. Looks like some hospitals know how to run things.
The VA in SE AZ has a great rep and, from what I could see, deserved same. In a couple of other areas I’ve seen – not so much.
Can any veteran go to the VA? I am a a VET, but do not have any disability or anything,
Every Vet is eligible for the VA. You’ll be assigned a group, and then care is given out from the 1st group on down in order of priority.
That’s what I got anyways. I’m personally 80%. I’ve been to the Bay Pines VA, Ft. Myers clinic, West Haven Ct. hospital and am currently going to the Newington Ct. VA.
Everywhere I went, the care was good. Not great, but good.
TSO – This 30 year old (at the time) went to the VA for a herniated disc (L5S1) with an LOD and supporting docs from the aid station in country in my hands.
After over a year the VA telling me the pain and subsequent physical limitations (45 minutes to get down a flight of stairs, inability to sit without being in excruciating pain, etc) were a figment of my imagination, I said screw it.
I had my wife add me to her civilian insurance during open enrollment, I went to a civilian doctor a few months later, within 24 hours I had an emergency MRI, an epidural, steroid pill taper, and was scheduled for surgery 2 weeks later. I guess that the surgery, along with removing the large portion of my disc that was compressing the nerve root, also got rid of that “figment of my imagination” the VA was talking about. Funny how that works.
So yeah, none of this surprises me one bit.
I hope you filed a claim with the VBA for service connected injury. The fact that you had surgery would grant you 100% temporary rating for the time your doctor determined the amount of time for recouperation. Just so you know.
I have my 50% so I could get all of my care at the VA, but I choose not to. First, I have good health coverage and a primary care doctor who I’ve gone to for years and like a lot. Second, the VA appointment I take might have gone to a veteran who has nowhere else to go. So, I’ve just never bothered to get into the VA healthcare system.
I know this comment is going to stir up a hornet’s nest of smug, self-righteous, thoroughly indoctrinated dissenters, BUT – – – In my own experience, RACE is a major factor in the quality of medical care at various VA facilities. When I lived at the Ol’ Soldiers’ Home in Washington, D.C., I was hospitalized in the Soldiers’ Home hospital (which no longer exists) as an emergency admittance. Previously, when hospitalized at the Salt Lake City VAMC, where almost all of the employees were white, I was furnished with basic toilet articles, pajamas, robe, and slippers. At the Soldiers’ Home hospital (which no longer exists), almost all employees were black, and living down to the lowest common denominator of their racial stereotype. There were no supplies to issue admitted patients because any supplies would be stolen by the black employees. Once, I and the blind fellow I shared a room with, listened aghast as we heard a patient being loudly and verbally abused, which as I was bedridden, was downright frightening to listen to. We had to wonder how safe we really were? Once, I went to the Washington, D.C. VA Hospital to visit a patient. I would NEVER want to be hospitalized or treated there! Because Washington, D.C. is composed almost entirely of blacks who choose to live down to the lowest common denominator of their racial stereotype, that VA Hospital is like high security prison fortress, complete with a polarized and hostile atmosphere. A friend went there for a Viet Nam veterans PTSD therapy rap session, and he was the only white person in the room. He never went back. When I transferred to Gulfport, Mississippi, where I was treated by the Biloxi VAMC, I learned that they were critically short of physicians, and had no medical specialists at all. Medical staff seemed okay, but the problem was “Affirmative Action”, i.e., having stereotypical blacks placed in positions they were obviously incapable of properly performing, i.e., dealing with the public, but being unable to communicate clearly enough to be readily understood. At the time that I left Mississippi, the… Read more »
I think that’s a very insightful look at the inside-looking-out- side of the VA system, Sure there are ppl who get off on being rude to others but at the same time. its probably nature vs, nurture, Environment has everything to do with it. If you were treated rudely when younger, you will treat people rudly when older. no matter what race you are im sure. MN is a very liberal state, you know, all people matter, but they don’t play that race crap. If you are rude, you are out.
Keep reminding me why I won’t send my kids to the recruiters when they graduate HS/college.
Thank God I left the service in (relatively) good health.
Only two comments on the treatment at the Montgomery, Al VA Medical Facility (on Perry Road)are worth mentioning. One, best be at least 25 minutes for any appointment there. Never have seen more than two patients in any waiting room. All appointments are under booked so as to make the work load just what a very bare minimum effort would require. Secondly, the post by John Robert Mallernee ABSOLUTELY reflects the employee situation in the Montgomery facility….To The “T’!!! Don’t take my word for it, go see yourself.
So glad I live overseas and can use Tricare. Not looking forward to the day I retire from GS job here and move back…
My dad, a Vietnam Vet and 100% service connected disabled Vet, is dying of cancer. He’s been receiving his care at the Harry Truman Memorial VA Hospital in Columbia, Missouri.
That place is the absolute nicest hospital I have ever been in. Anywhere. Period. Everything about it.
As some of you know I recently retired from the Army. My retirement physical was at Ireland Army Hospital at Fort Knox.
Walking into that place was like walking back into 1986. Everything about it was decrepit, outdated and wholly inefficient.
Everyone that I’ve spoken to in the DC area has said that the VA services in DC are a horror show, and that it’s worth the trip to drive to Richmond to get anything done. It’s not a surprise with the number of vets who are now serving either in Congress or on Congressional staffs are running into issues at the DC VA.
I’ve used the DC VA facility twice, both for enrollment. The Ft. Belvoir facility, where I am seen, is brand spanking new and inside the brand new Belvoir hospital. Now, traffic can be a bear, but where in DC area isn’t? Also, parking is a NIGHTMARE in DC and loads at Belvoir.
Half the toilets in DC were being fixed, people were surely, starting to get the story? I agree with all previous posters, it’s all about the location.