What Davidson said
Here’s a Raw Story article that refers to comments made by Representative Warren Davidson (R-OH) who replaced weepy John Boehner in Congress;
The headline readers on the Left have all they need for information for this story, but even in the article, that’s not what Davidson, a veteran himself, said;
“Just like workers comp out here’s got moochers, I wish that there were no vets that were the same sort of problem on our society,” Davidson said. “But part of the problem is there are some vets that are moochers and they’re clogging up the system, and we do as taxpayers want to make sure the VA filters out these folks that are pretenders. Just like we wish there were no people out there with stolen valor, but that’s a problem in the vet community, too.”
We’ve seen a number of phonies who try to use the system – mostly folks who have never deployed, were never injured in training who make up stories about their service. Some have never even served in the military;
His spokesman cited four cases of VA benefits fraud uncovered this year, all of which were prosecuted.
Only one of those four cases involved VA health care services, when a California man falsely claimed to be a decorated Marine Corps veteran to get health care benefits and other assistance.
The Inspector General’s Office investigated 14 cases between Oct. 1, 2015, and March 31, 2016, which resulted in five arrests.
I think there have been more than four prosecuted since March. There are also a number of pretenders who haven’t been busted by the VA – like Joe Cryer.
Obviously Davidson was talking about the fakes and phonies, not all veterans. But then, Raw Story isn’t known for presenting facts to it’s readers.
Category: Dumbass Bullshit, Media
If you don’t read the news, you are uninformed.
If you do read the news, you are misinformed!
A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.
H.L. Mencken.
Four years active duty Navy honorably discharged Never injured in any way. Was promised VA benefits when I got out. Does that make me a moocher ?
That’s not what I’m saying. It’s the clowns that claim PTSD from basic training. The ones who claim that they were affected by Agent Orange when they were no where near any of it. There was a guy in Tennessee who claimed that he was blind and got hundreds of thousands of dollars and he wasn’t blind. Joe Cryer gets 100% for PTSD resulting from an operation that only happened in his head.
Jonn….you hit the nail on the head! Thank you.
I spoke to my Social Worker at Northport recently who told me that she couldn’t believe some of the BS she encounters with some of the phonies that claim PTSD.
She just shook her head in disbelief!!
Fortunately, she relates that they (for the most part) see them coming and weed them out after a couple of interviews.
I recommended to her that she visit this website for a little insight.
Keep it up, Jonn. You’re important to a lot of the Vets that don’t know whether they’re “coming or going.”
God Bless!
My head shrink visits this page quite often..
The VA is starting to re-review a lot of claims from the last 8 years or so
Now if I can get them to review mine I’d be a happy camper
Rounds on target, Jonn!
No one is promised VA disability benefits. One must apply, be examined, and meet the criteria in 38 USC.
No Sir! I too served 4 years honorably and am in the VA….I have no other insurance and am grateful for the VA…in fact, I thought a little pay back while I was able was in order, I drove a DAV van to our Arizona hospitals for over a year until my hearing got to the point where I couldn’t hear my passengers….no..you are not a mooch and neither am I, we earned our stripes….I was on a carrier in the South China Sea in 1959, we were sending planes into Vietnam, I was not in country…but we too served!
You were promised the appropriate benefits for which you qualify. If you get benefits that don’t deserve then you are mooching. It’s that simple.
Depends on the benefits. I would say that lifetime free medical care, which some seem to expect, is mooching. It may be authorized by Congress (categories 6-8) but in my mind it is mooching.
Depends on what your disability is. If you qualify it ain’t mooching.
Honestly qualify that is.
Akpual: you need to read up on how the VA defines “Priority Groups” for eligibility for healthcare. You can do that here:
http://www.va.gov/healthbenefits/resources/priority_groups.asp
Vets in Categories 5 (low income vets), 7, and 8 have no service-connected disabling conditions at all. In particular, Category 5 appears to be nothing more than pure welfare (non-service-connected vets who fall below income thresholds and/or are eligible for Medicaid).
While some in Category 6 (radvets, project SHAD/112, stationed at LeJeune) who have no diagnosed service-connected conditions may warrant care due to reasonable presumption of exposure to known or potentially hazardous chemicals or agents, the others . . . not so much. And I have to wonder why a “compensable 0% service-connected Veterans” should be provided healthcare by the VA for anything but said 0% condition(s). As it stands now, they get the “whole enchilada” (and this document indicates that they may not even have to pay a copayment).
http://www.va.gov/healthbenefits/resources/publications/IB10-431_copay_requirements_at_a_glance.pdf
I have no problem with the VA providing healthcare for any service-connected condition, or to bona fide POWs and those totally disabled, gratis. I do have a problem with turning the VA medical care system into govt-provided free medicine “giveaway” for all vets.
Morally, the govt owes a vet care for service-connected conditions. But it doesn’t owe you free healthcare for life simply for service that ends short of retirement.
Thanks for that info. I was referring to vets with diagnosed disabilities. I don’t see them as moochers. I did not know about those other cases and don’t get how anyone can justify healthcare for 0% disability. Also there are people in category 6 with actual disabilities that don’t use VA health care because they feel it is for those less fortunate.
Unfortunately, those in groups 5, 7, and 8 by definition have no such disabilities. But by law, if resources permit the VA has the statutory authority to treat them. That authority IMO should be terminated.
Regarding 0% SC conditions – I really have no problem with treatment for those. Case in point: an orthopedic injury can be non-disabling, but can require periodic treatment and/or medication. IMO those are legit.
In a perfect world, IMO the VA would provide healthcare for service-connected conditions and a few others with legitimate presumption of exposure to toxic/hazardous materials, plus a few rigorously defined groups (e.g., bona fide POWs, those 100% physically disabled, radvets, SHAD/112 participants, and LeJeune). But the world we have today certainly isn’t perfect.
Exactly, Hondo. The very sad reality is that those who are lining up for free treatment just because are keeping those who need it most from getting any of their earned treatment, at worst, or at least delaying what they not only need but have earned by sacrificing more than just showing up.
“It’s the clowns that claim PTSD from basic training” or hearing tales told by others or POTENTIALLY being placed in a situation in which trauma might occur or loading ordnance and later feeling traumatized by the use of that ordnance against our enemies, and so on. I call it Free Cheese. It has nothing to do with legit claims or any other thing that honorable military service entitles the soldier, sailor. airman, or Marine to receive.
Yep
“Teh PTSD” from Basic Training? WTF? Shit, I was a Decedent Affairs Officer for 26 months and saw my fair share of deceased Marines and Sailors during that time and I never made the claim of “teh PTSD”.
Unfuckingbelievable….
Man I gotta check my reading skills. I read it as decadent not decedent. Decedent affairs would be one tough mentally stressing job.
Let me clarify “by the use BY OTHERS of that ordnance against our enemies….”
Did someone actually expect a headline to correctly reflect the story? Really??
Sure, it would be nice, but the media can’t be bothered with simple things like facts, accuracy, or even a bit of honesty.
Yep, Davidson slurred moochers and pretenders, but he didn’t slur veterans, certainly not all veterans. At least not in what was quoted.
Does the VA system attract moochers and pretenders? Certainly. Folks looking for handouts tend to go wherever handouts are being given. Moochers and pretenders are the ones in line who didn’t earn or qualify for whatever is being given away.
OH, to have a non-biased news media…
*its readers
This is the paradox of a military elite, which is what we’ve become. It’s great that society holds the military in such high regard, but there is some danger here. As an aside, I never liked the Yellow Ribbon car magnets, but have you noticed that there are fewer and fewer of them?
Since we’ve had the AVF, very few Americans have any connection with the military. As the Greatest Generation and the Forgotten Generation died off and the Vietnam generation ages, there is an increasingly smaller percentage of Americans who have ever served, much less in combat, and fewer and fewer Americans have any direct link to the military.
Sadly, Americans are just fine with that. As long as there is a group of people willing to go off and do the fighting, Americans are willing to feign concern. They have no skin in the game, but they feel guilty enough to make empty promises and gestures.
In their guilt they will jump at any chance to ‘support’ the veterans without question. They have put us on a very high pedestal without questioning any of it that they fall for any charlatan that comes along.
They don’t want the VA to turn anyone away, but they then get outraged (as do veterans) when fakers and posers take benefits away from real veterans.
This is the paradox of a military elite, which is what we’ve become. Previous generations of vets were a greater part of society as a whole, while AVF and WOT vets are a class unto themselves. The VA was designed to handle the Greatest Generation in its prime, and the plans did not take into account that those veterans would tough it out so long, or that so many young veterans would join the system so early in the modern era. The whole VA medical system should be scrapped and rebuilt.
The same folks that put you on that pedastal are the same ones to embrace the “crazed combat veteran with the PTSD oh my God”. Gullible as fuck with no critical thinking skills. Makes it easy for the posers.
Parodox of being the military elite,you’ve been reading too much of your on propaganda. The members of the AVF, are good, but with the exception of global conflicts enlisted in combat always outnumbered draftees, and the Officer corps has always been for the most part volunteer. You are/were better trained than some poor marine on the beach of some long forgotten island in WWII, some draftee grunt freezing to death in summer uniforms on hill #??? in Korea or the grunt in the mud of Vietnam, the were elite,you folks are fortunate to be able to carry on the tradition,every soldier , sailor or airman’s war was and always will be,as General of some fame named Sherman observed WAR IS HELL. PTSD has been around as long as war you guys lucked out that it had finally been acknowledged. There are a lot of Veterans with some degree of PTSD but the vet drawing 100% for it is rare. Yes there are liars, cheaters, pretenders and fakes in our community, but the percentage is so low it doesn’t make the decimal point in VA math. I’ve known many elite solders in my life the first I recall was a 21 year old, I was 14 or 15 who had been captured in the early days of the Korean Confict ( wasn’t a war you know) spent the entire time as a POW was released spent 2 weeks in a hospital being fattened up, 25-30 days on a troop ship back to the states. Handed his DD214 typed by and by a clerk who could not hav cared less if it was correct or not handed back pay of well under $100 a month oh yeah they gave him a ride to the front gate . You people of the AVF aren’t special in this countries military history you are fortunate to be able to care on the tradition of the elite military this country has had since before the first shot was fired at Bunker hill. Yes the Nam was part of my 20 years but only a part. I’m… Read more »
I think the percentage of fraudulent VA compensation claims are higher than you think.
Claims as you know don’t always = a disability check I.e. Hearing 0% service connected ,they acknowledge it’s service connected but rated at 0% only logical in VA land but what the hell ive gotten a great set of hearing aids, another one that always puzzles me is a guy who spends 20-25 years jumping out of healthy airplanes whose knees go out in his late forties . Nothing in his medical records so it is denied ,airborne are like pilots they will crawacross hot coals before they admit anything is wrong, then they hit va and some clerk says not in your medical records doesn’t exsist. After the Air Force I worked for SS as a disability adjudicatior believe me there were far more false claims than VA gets but for the vast majority got kicked with SS you either are or aren’t it’s based on your ability to do any kind of work, with VA in theory it makes up for lost ability to earn. There will always be false claims, probally why the VA Reg office guys get so jaded..
As a Paratrooper with bad knees, hips, back, etc… and not a lot of “documentation” in my medical record(because more water and Motrin cured everything back in the day), I actually did not have a lot of difficulty getting it acknowledged by the VBA. I had just enough in my med records, but they are pretty fair about presumptive injuries related to airborne operations.
Well, per what you say above you got treatment and hearing aids from the VA for the hearing condition (free, since service-connected). Unless you’re a professional musician or audio engineer, I can’t see how the hearing condition materially impacted your ability to make a living. So yes, I can easily see how that’s a “compensable 0% service-connected condition”.
For the same reason, even some documented orthopedic injuries (knees, ankles, back) may also be rated at 0%. If they’re not severe enough to have a significant impact on lifestyle or ability to earn a living, they should be rated at 0% – e.g., you get treatment but no $$$ from the VA for them. That can change as one ages if/when the condition deteriorates.
Bottom line: military service isn’t a free meal ticket for life for anyone. And contrary what some seem to think, there was no promise of “lifetime free medical care” – even to military retirees. That was always on a “space available” basis for retirees, and ended on discharge for everyone else. Best I can tell, the VA only relatively recently began treating pretty much “all comers”. I’d estimate sometime after about the mid-2000s, but it might have been a bit earlier than that (maybe the Bosnia time frame).
Further, retiree medical care under TRICARE formerly ended when one became Medicare eligible. It took Congress changing the law to make TRICARE apply to retirees over 65.
Elite as in a smaller separate group, not in terms of being better. I’m not arguing that the AVF is better than its predecessors, but that the draftee military was more reflective of society.
I’m a freshman at my local community college, had a kid sitting behind me ask if I was in the military (yes, retired) – told me he had been in the Marines. The other day he decides he needs to tell me that he did a year and got out with an OTH for drugs and alchohol “because of the stress”. I didn’t tell him that I was retired with 21 years of that as an NCO – I’m just waiting for him to start telling the BS war stories to those naive young college girls before I rip into him 🙂 . God help him if I catch him trying to scam the system.
I remember the first time I ran across someone claiming PTSD: 1986.
Individual worked for me. Was having problems with the Navy’s “fatboy” program. Having dreams about “ninja’s” attacking him during the night. Ex-marine. Vietnam vet. Claimed to have been blown out of his tank. Then joined the Navy.
Called and talked to my father. Career Air Force (Korea & Vietnam). He said “I have no dreams…I did my job.”
Talked to another man who rumor had it was a Seal in Vietnam. He came into my office. I mentioned the situation.
The man changed in front of me. The temperature in the room dropped 40 degrees instantaneously. I could see my breath.
He said “See this face, see these ears…not what I was born with…I have 87 confirmed kills…I did my job…I have no dreams…”
I’ve been retired now for 24 years. Moved to the middle of nowhere..I have met more “Special Forces, Green Berets, Navy Seals, MACV/SOG operators, etc.” in this little county than I did while I was serving…
(I only heard tears from one of them.)
But on the other hand…I have also finally met two truck drivers from Vietnam…(I shook their hand.)
Life is not easy and war is hell. Handle it.
The bottom to this story is that the news media types try to make Republicans veteran haters. The Democrats are of course are the compassionate ones. Truth be told the fakers and scammers are about which Davidson was speaking.
I am seriously all fucked up. I got problems they don’t even have names for yet. I think I might be addicted to oral sex. I am particularly obsessed with the “68”. Thats when she does me and I owe her one.
Can I get a check for that? If it wasn’t for my service I would have never spent that much time in strip clubs. No safety brief was ever offered. I feel like I was victimized by naked women who take my money because of it. The military needs to be held accountable for my loss of income.
The problem with the VA is they are paying too many people benefits…period. Davidson did not go far enough with his statements. Too many people getting a check every month for bullshit. Those that really do deserve the benefit stand in line behind Divisions of entitlement parasites.
Ya, chances are if that offends you I am talking about you. I turned in all my give a shit when I check out of Camp Lejeune.