Obama’s veterans healthcare zombie
The Military Times reports that the Cato Institute Washington think tank “is offering a radical idea” to repair the veterans’ health care system. Force active duty servicemembers and veterans to buy health insurance;
In an online essay last week, institute Director of Health Policy Studies Michael Cannon recommends dropping the idea of free health care for veterans and instead offering better pay for current troops and vouchers for current veterans to buy their own coverage on the open market.
He also calls for privatizing the Veterans Health Administration — something the major veterans groups have all argued against — with shares of the new publicly-run company to be given to veterans and servicemembers based on time in service.
The idea is not new. The Obama White House offered the same proposal in 2009 and it was rejected by veterans and Veterans’ Service Organizations. The cost to a service-connected service member would make the insurance not affordable for wounded soldiers who don’t work, generally, because of their injuries. Like the Affordable Health Care Act, the plan depends on insurance companies to disregard the fact that they’ll never again turn a profit in order to make the plan affordable.
As with many ideas generated in Washington, this one has a social justice warrior component, too;
“(In the event of war), the added risk of deaths and injuries would cause premiums to rise, which would increase the amount of added pay Congress must provide each service member. The result is that future Congresses and presidents would have to confront this enormous cost of war at the moment they decide to send U.S. troops off to war, and every day they decide to keep them there.”
Using service members’ health as a political tool just doesn’t seem right to me.
Category: Politics
At some point, if the SJW prevail, then these United States might as well look to hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, or perhaps using all the illegals and gang bangers, cartel thugs, etc. Trade them citizenship for four year’s service.
Think I’m off my meds? That’s what Rome did when maintaining the legions got to be too expensive.
You’ll note how that ended…….
Yeh, the asshole in the off white house said, “they knew what they were getting into when they enlisted”, saying NO MEDICAL should be provided, they should buy their own!! That from the low life leech that has been sucking America dry, him and his boyfriend michael the tranny and its shopping trips!!
That’s exactly how we’ll end, too.
And another bad idea floats to the top of the septic tank.
People misdiagnosing the problems and offering the wrong solutions. Again.
Some sink some float.
“Using service members’ health as a political tool just doesn’t seem right to me.”
I think they have been doing just that for a very long time.
Sure let’s extort veterans but continue to enable prescription drug junkies and doctor shoppers all on the taxpayer dime.
Isn’t this one of McCains little projects also screw the SM
I know why they call him a maverick now
Let me see if I understand this correctly: pay a premium I can’t afford for something that is supposed to be guaranteed in exchange for my service/working life, get stiffed on everything including costs to me, and wait for hours, weeks, months to just see someone for a cold that eventually becomes pneumonia.
Yeah, Medicare and VA health care turned into private medicine – that makes sense to me, too. I might as well just ask my veterinarian for flu shots and X-rays for my arthritis. I’d get better care and wouldn’t even have to describe the problem. Their patients don’t speak ‘Human’.
What an ignorant bunch of bull shit this is. Wonder how many nights this ass hat stayed up thinking this through. I’d say, zero. Considering the old horse of “pass the buck on to those least able to pay and most deserving of service” has been trotted out for sale more than once in several aspects of military life.
Fucktards.
Oh, yet another “Fuck those serving as long as I look good” campaign gimmick? FUCK whoever came up with that sideways with rusty tangled barbed wire wrapped in asbestos soaked in diarrhea and nuclear waste.
“The result is that future Congresses and presidents would have to confront this enormous cost of war at the moment they decide to send U.S. troops off to war, and every day they decide to keep them there.”
Translation. Congress and the president are good to go with sending our young people off to get killed and wounded, but they will have a problem with paying for treatment of the wounds suffered.
Get a gerbil lodged in your ass and the gov’t will cover your healthcare costs for removing it. Get wounded in service to the country and…
I’m waiting for the brain that gets up and suggests wounded warriors get the bill for the helicopter ride off the battlefield, like is done with ambulance rides here. It really wouldn’t surprise me, at this point.
Some of my disabled veteran friends use their VA compensation to purchase SS supplemental (medigap) policies. Original SS is a good deal for retired over 65 veterans who can afford to do this. Yeah, I know we shouldn’t have to.
Anyone who didn’t see this coming in 2009 with Obamacare raise your hand.
Didn’t think so. Not happy but not surprised that this is being “floated.
I’d love to be able to switch to TriCare when I turn 60 (that’s when my eligibility starts) but I’ve given up on assuming that there will still be a Tri Care by then.
Almost sounds like the WWI War Bonds all over again.
Promise ’em anything, screw ’em if they show up for it.
Are you familiar with the song “Paddy’s Lamentation” about the Irish in the Civil War?
I know there are variations in the lyrics (as any folk song) but one line goes something like:
“General Meagher to us said
‘If you get shot or lose a leg,
ev’ry mother’s son of you will get a pension.’
In the war I lost me leg
All I got’s a wooden peg.
Paddy this is the truth to you I mention.”
Nothing new to cheat a veteran, sad to say.
Correct “one line” to “one verse” /sigh
Are you talking the WWI Bonus Army protest?
They were actually protesting to get their war bonus early.
Like 12 years early.
It’s true that the WW I veterans weren’t to be paid until 1945 but that was their bonus (all ready banked) with interest. Who knew so many of them would be hurt when the Great Depression arrived? So, they demanded their banked bonus and interest to date. FDR said “No!” and vetoed the bill that would have paid the Veterans. Congress overrode his veto. Smart move, given what would happen five years later: WW II and whole new mountain of debt and, ultimately, Veterans. FDR loved the Vets when he needed them. Sounds awfully familiar.
Well, also, FDR sent Douglas MacArthur into the crowd to deal with them. Yes, THAT MacArthur.
They were camped out at Anancostia Flats, which is now NS Anacostia next door to Bolling AFB. Strange how some things just stay the same, isn’tit?
Yep, and he had Dwight D. Eisenhower with him.
While Eisenhower was on MacArthur’s staff and wrote the final Army report concerning the Bonus Army matter, he was one of MacArthur’s junior aides at the time. Eisenhower thus had essentially zero input on how the matter was handled. He did, however, later claim to have advised MacArthur against taking a public role, saying, “I told that dumb son-of-a-bitch not to go down there. I told him it was no place for the Chief of Staff.”
At least one other future US general also took an active part in the Bonus Army matter: then-MAJ George Patton. He commanded the six tanks that participated in the eviction of the Bonus Army.
Actually, Hoover was POTUS when the Bonus Army was evicted from DC. The harsh handling of the Bonus Army is one factor that contributed to Hoover’s landslide loss to FDR later that year. However, FDR generally had the same position re: the Bonus Army as did Hoover; he opposed their demands. It was Hoover’s clumsy handling of the eviction that FDR used as a political club.
There was a second Bonus Army march during the FDR administration, but that one in May 1933 was handled far differently. (FDR may have been a Socialist leftist, but he wasn’t a dumbass – he learned from Hoover’s errors in handling the first Bonus Army incident.) That second Bonus Army march was provided a camp area in VA, not DC (better isolated from the media), was treated with kid gloves and visited by Eleanor Roosevelt, and the protestors offered priority job placement in the CCC.
FWIW: NS Anacostia did in fact exist during the Bonus Army incident. The Bonus Army camp, “Hooverville”, wasn’t on what is today Joint Base Bolling-Anacostia. Rather, it was somewhat NE of there, in what is today Section C of DC’s Anacostia Park.
Hondo. You’re right in what you wrote. There were actually two vetoes of WW I early payments, one by Hoover and one by FDR. There was a bill, passed by Congress, that would have provided half the money due to the Veterans but Hoover vetoed it. Congress overrode his veto in 1931. Deep in the depression, the Veterans asked for the balance due them and Hoover said no. In June 1932, the House passed a bill that would have done that but it didn’t get through the Senate. MacArthur’s horrendous attack on the Bonus Army and their families followed and Hoover was annihilated by FDR in the election. When representatives of the Bonus Army returned with the same issue the following year, FDR also said no. Three years later, Congress passed a bill to pay the WW I Veterans but FDR vetoed it. Like Hoover’s veto, FDR’s was overridden by Congress.
You’re also correct. My reason for posting the above was to clarify that the 1st Bonus Army incident (and the eviction) happened under Hoover, not FDR.
FDR did much to screw the USA in the long term. But evicting the Bonus Army isn’t something for which he deserves blame. Blame for that falls on Hoover – and MacArthur, who apparently went far beyond his original orders while carrying out the eviction (some accounts say he was ordered to stop the eviction by Hoover, but did not).
It’s what one would expect from the CATO Institute, so nobody should really be surprised. Privatization of government + making war more difficult to initiate.
My solution is a little easier: shrink the military to reduce costs, instead of thinking up new ways to dick service members over. It’s far larger than we really need, IMO.
Put every democrat politician and obama on obamacare.
For life.
And give veterans the congressional health care plan.
Fine with me!
OK, I’ll ask the question that is (or should be) the “elephant in the room” no one’s talking about here.
Why should the VA be providing free care for non-service-connected conditions for anyone who’s not rated as being permanently-and-totally disabled? Why shouldn’t vets be required to pay for healthcare for non-service-connected stuff?
And, please: spare me the “we were promised that” crap. Unless you’re a military retiree, you were NOT promised any entitlement to lifetime government medical care (e.g., TRICARE) simply because you served. And even TRICARE isn’t completely free – it has copayments, deductables, and an annual fee.
Uncle Sam has the responsibility to pay for the treatment of medical conditions he caused or made worse. But tell me: how is demanding free medical treatment for stuff that’s not service-connected as some kind of “veteran’s right” any different than sticking out a hand and saying, “Gimme gimme gimme”?
Let me clue you in, in case you haven’t heard: folks, Uncle Sam is flat freaking broke. Social Security Disability? That “trust fund” was only saved from going broke this year by a reallocation of FICA tax receipts in 2015 (with less now going to the Old Age fund, hastening it’s depletion) – and that only prolongs the Disability “trust fund” going broke until 2023. Social Security Old Age benefits? That “trust fund” will be gone in less than 20 years – 2034, to be precise. Medicare? That “Trust Fund” will be depleted in 12 years (2028). And don’t get me started on the Treasury’s “general fund”. We’ve been running a hefty Federal deficit ever since 2000 – and before that, since one of the early years in the Nixon Administration.
The money to keep paying for “free stuff” just isn’t there. We all need to get that through our heads.
The VA should be providing ZERO health benefits to anyone not rated to be in one of the eligibility groups. Period.
The VA exists to provide for those that we broke while they were in service, not act as an extended welfare system for veterans.
You’d be surprised. The VA provides free healthcare for a load of folks, and acts as a low-cost “primary doctor” for a whole lot more.
The VA priority groups for healthcare are defined here:
https://www.va.gov/healthbenefits/resources/priority_groups.asp
Take a good look at priority groups 6, 7, and 8. For “low income” vets, copayments are dramatically reduced.
1. The VA doesn’t cover non service related problems except on an lowest priority if we have room available type of service. As in waiting 6+ months and being able to be bumped at any time.
2. What part of the sentence – “to repair the veterans’ health care system. Force active duty servicemembers and veterans to buy health insurance” – don’t you comprehend?
3. No VA health care for anyone not permanently-and-totally disabled? Are you a trolling idiot? I know vets with missing legs and arms and eyesight not that rated.
I guess we should just tell them to fuck off. We need that money for illegals and muslim “refugees” to attend college.
1. The VA in fact provides primary healthcare to a sh!tload of people. Anyone returning from deployment gets 5 years VA healthcare coverage after separation. That’s been the case since sometime in the 1990s. Plus, VA Healthcare Priority Group 7 consists of any vet who is “low income”, and Priority Group 8 consists of NSC vets. Based on what I’ve seen, there’s a load of folks in those categories too.
2. The active duty issue you raise is legit – but it has nothing to do with my comment, and is thus irrelevant. Not even a “nice try” at changing the subject or appealing to emotion, amigo.
Further, retirees in effect already have to “buy insurance”. Unless they want to depend solely on TRICARE Standard, they pay the TRICARE Prime annual fee – and then pay whatever copayments TRICARE Prime requires.
3. You might want to work on your reading comprehension. You apparently have a problem with comprehending plain English.
Nowhere above did I advocate restricting ALL VA healthcare services to those rated P&TD. What I actually said above was that only those rated P&TD should receive free care for NON-SERVICE-CONNECTED CONDITIONS from the VA. The VA is in general required to treat ALL service-connected conditions, regardless of an individual’s disability rating, gratis.
If a vet is missing a leg and that’s due to a service-connected injury or condition, the VA would indeed treat that gratis. But the VA often provides ALL of a vet’s healthcare – and for those with “low incomes”, all copayments are reduced sharply. For those rated at 50% or higher, regardless of income copayments are waived entirely. What that means is for a load of vets, the VA is now their low-cost (or free) “primary doctor” vice providing specialty treatment for service-connected issues.
That’s absurd. If Uncle Sam broke it or made it worse, Uncle Sam has an obligation to treat the condition. But if not, no dice.
I pay for Tricare Prime because I live near Fort Belvoir…not a bad deal, but not free…I don’t go to the VA because I am aware that there are “free riders” out there taking advantage of the system.
The truly remarkable thing is that our system has been eroding benefits since at least 1975 and it is just now becoming a story.
The bottom line is that veterans no longer carry national elections. We did not just discharge 14 million men and women into the voting population and no longer have the power we once had. Add to this our VSO’s lack of vision 25 years ago and you get what we have.
The truth is that some reform is needed but that the Pentagon cannot be trusted to make such decisions.
I visit the local CBOC for general physician visits and prescription refills, both of which I pay a copay and are non-service connected. Happily.
I agree with you Hondo, but in the same breathe, what about the people getting the free cheese just for breathing?
Food Stamps
Healthcare
Dental
Vision
Cell phones and the bill
Paid utility bills
Land lines
Welfare
Insane rental assistance
Free housing
Broadband internet in their rent free home
Milk/Formula for the children they chose to have
24/7 non-emergent care at the emergency room
As you aware, the list goes on and on. Where the fuck does it end? The feds always seem to overlook the leeches and zero in on veterans when “cutbacks” are discussed.
Agreed. Unfortunately, that’s a different issue entirely.
I’d love to see Congress take the proverbial “meat ax” to most US social welfare programs – including Social Security and Medicare. (Don’t even get me started on most other programs, which I think are even worse in both theory and implementation today than Social Security and Medicare.)
Mark my words: big cutbacks are going to happen, one way or another, and very likely in my lifetime. But I’m afraid it will happen the hard way – e.g., when the $$$ runs out and we have no choice.
We had our chance to fix Social Security in the 1980s, by privatizing it in a manner similar to the Chilean system. But the liberal wing of Congress blocked that, and we chose to kick the can down the road instead.
For Social Security, if we do nothing the crash (trust fund exhausted) comes in less than 20 years. I’ll likely still be around to see that.
Well, just out of curiosity, Hondo, since Social Security retirement income is the ONLY income available for some people – NOT the welfare end of it – if it’s eliminated, what do you propose to replace it with?
My SS taxes supported your parents into retirement, so when do I get mine back, then, if it’s gone? Do I get a refund? I don’t think so. It’s a tax, not a retirement savings plan, remember?
So how do you propose to replace SS retirement income if the program is eliminated?
Furthermore, a 20% cut in monthly SS retirement income hits grocery and transportation money. It is not just spending money, so how do you propose to replace that?
Frankly, this shit goes back to LBJ’s welfare program in 1965, along with Medicare which has become nothing but an expensive boondoggle loaded with fraud.
And not everyone has been blessed with employers who offered retirement pension plans or 401Ks or anything else, and many paid wages so low that their employees were just getting by, ergo retirement planning means moving in with their adult children. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that at least 40% of the population at or nearing retirement age had jobs with incomes well below the median for retirement planning of any kind.
It’s a completely false assumption that everyone has had an equal shot at retirement planning. Utterly false.
So what do you propose to replace SS retirement income with? Your good looks?
Lady, IMO at this point there is no good solution to the Social Security and Medicare messes. (If I thought I had one, I’d certainly offer it.) We had a chance to fix this mess permanently in the early 1980s – and the Left fought those proposals for financially-sane reform tooth and nail, preferring the current tax-funded Socialist Ponzi scheme instead. And the US public let them get away with it. When the Social Security and Medicaid slush trust funds run out, we have a real problem. As I understand it, at that point Social Security by law goes PAYGO, with what’s estimated to be a resulting roughly 25% cut in benefits paid. Not positive about Medicare, but I think the same is true about that too – when the slush trust fund runs out, I believe it also goes PAYGO. The American people were sold a Ponzi scheme by FDR and his leftists back in the 1930s, and have willingly embraced it ever since. And the majority of the US public even “doubled down” by forgetting that Social Security was never really intended to serve as a person’s sole retirement income; it just doesn’t provide enough income for most for that to be the case. Rather, it was intended to supplement individual pensions and/or savings. But for most, a new car every year or two, a house far larger than needed, and vacations were more important than saving for retirement – or even than paying off the house early. Can’t give those up to save for the future! In short: the US population willingly bought into the Left’s socialist Ponzi scheme regarding Social Security – because it let them live beyond their means. But soon, I’m afraid we’re going to find out what happens when you run out of OPM (other people’s money) with respect to Social Security and Medicare. What do I think will happen? Some combination that kicks the can further down the road again; I don’t see the American public changing, and they do love their government bennies. I’d guess FICA taxes go up again (bad… Read more »
I’m not arguing that, at all, Hondo. The entire thing has been poorly handled from Day One, and could have been corrected, as you said, in the 1980s but was not. Both sides have pandered to the fear of loss of what is supposed to be supplemental income, as you said, but instead becomes sole income.
However, it’s also a false assumption that everyone in the Boomer generation has bought a new car every year or a house bigger than needed, or squandered income on silly things. I will repeat that a large portion of the post-WWII Boomer population does not, and never did, fall into that category of spendthrifts. Instead, they faced rising inflation in food, transportation, and other costs such as utilities, increased taxes or housing rents, and basic income barely kept up with inflation.
I’m not arguing at all what you said, but when a disproportionate section of a population demographic (Boomers) struggles to get by while working, find themselves jobless because of a massive recession, and have trouble later finding work again, they never recover from it financially.
I’m not talking about people who bought houses during the housing bubble and found themselves in dire straits when it burst. I’m talking about people who were NOT spendthrifts, did NOT waste money on fripperies, and if they managed to set aside anything, it disappeared in the Great Recession. And they are now stuck with the consequences of that.
Sorry if I sounded snippy, but I know too many people who are financially screwed and have no other income resource. And no, they aren’t going to get hired to work anywhere, and they know it.
So if there’s no real solution to it, other than eliminating LBJ’s welfare state, is there any plan at all?
No argument there. But from what I’ve seen over the past 40 years or so, those who chose to live within their means and put something aside for retirement – e.g., smaller house than they could afford if leveraged to the hilt, keep the car 10 years, cheap vacations or none at all, etc . . . – were decidedly in the minority. And that’s not just the “Boomer” generation; it’s Gen-X also. (Millenials show some disturbing “gimme” trends, but it’s still early enough that they might “get it” regarding financially planning for their future – and some clearly do already.)
Yeah, I know all about the “joy” of buying a home at the peak of the market. Lost a rather large chunk of $$$ selling one recently for exactly that reason.
Academia now seems to have a favorite term for problems with no good solution, or maybe no solution at all. They call them “wicked problems”. How to fix the mess that FDR and LBJ set up – and which every POTUS and Congress since has failed to correct, and generally made worse – may well be a “wicked problem”.
History provides some examples of what happens when the money runs out. They ain’t pretty, and I don’t want to be around to see that happen here.
No one is really prepared for a financial implosion like the Depression or the 2009 Recession. The biggest curse ever invented is credit cards, after that, smartphones. My parents were both hit by the Depression, but my father remained a spendthrift up to the day he died. If it hadn’t been for my mother, he’d have starved to death. My mother, on the other hand, never got over the financial walloping of the Depression and pinched every penny until it squeaked. What I’m addressing is the rising cost of simple things like taxes, food, transportation and utilities when fuel prices are dropping on the COMEX. You still have to pay property tax, you still have to pay for transportation which in some cities is unreliable public transportation, or vastly inflated gas prices at the pump because the city (e.g., Chicago) is broke. For example, because the County of Cook is flat broke, homeowners/property owners can expect a full 1% rise in their tax in 2017. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but if the assessed value of your home is $500,000 and your tax WAS 4%, you will now pay 5%. That’s a huge chunk of change. The cost of gas in Chicago proper is as much as $.75/gal higher than where I live, miles away from the city. The rent for my old apartment (1BR, 1 bath) is now nearly $900/month. When I left, it was $655/month. Apartment rents in Chicago generally start around $950 for studios now, which is mortgage money. So how in the blue-eyed world is someone who is not getting a $90k salary or $20/hr pay supposed to be able to set aside anything? I can give you more examples, e.g., Metra’s monthly commuter rail ticket that I used to buy for $120 monthly is now $266 monthly. That’s a hell of an inflated rate. So you, the working stiff, may have what seems like a huge paycheck, but after you lose 40% of it to FICA income tax, SS/Medicare and state income tax, and if you live outside the city or state, an additional… Read more »
Well, Hondo, as usual a good question.
What I don’t know is what the terms and conditions were (e.g. what promises were made) when folks joined the military at various times. I would guess that what one was promised upon signing up depends upon when one joined.
I suppose I could check with my brother – who has probably misplaced his papers from the late 70’s-early 80’s – and my son and compare what is down in black-and-white.
Non-service-related may be reasonable to a point. As an example from the world, when I retired after 20 from a state programming job, part of my retirement benefit is to remain eligible for my healthcare plan, continuing to pay a portion and having the state pay a portion.
If someone has given (to pull numbers out of the air) 20-30 hard years of military service (which wears on the body in many ways) I can see it as fair that their medical coverage through the VA continues unabated.
Maybe a 6-and-done type needs service-related only benefits.
But again, what was in the contract? That ought to be the deciding factor.
Yes, the gubbmint is broke (in multiple ways). That could be fixed by cutting back on some of the alphabets like EPA, DOE, etc. Those parasites cost the US money in many different ways.
My retirement healthcare costs keep going up (thanks to that wonderful Affordability promise 0bama made) but I still get them. Depending on the terms in force when one joined the military, one ought to be able to expect what was promised then.
I loath bait-and-switch maneuvers. What I perceive (correctly or incorrectly) is a bait-and-switch going on.
YMMV
Graybeard: someone who served 20 or 30 years in uniform almost certainly retired. Frankly, they don’t really need VA healthcare at all – except possibly for specialty care for service-connected conditions. They are eligible for TRICARE. I can tell you what was promised – and what was in reality provided – since World War II. Regarding promises: much was implied, but not that much was actually promised to those entering the military. And I can give you chapter and verse on how DoD lied through their teeth regarding those implied promises on the healthcare issue. I’m the son of a WW2 vet who served a full career and retired in the 1960s, and I joined in the 1970s. Here’s my assessment of what I saw happen to my parents, and what I saw myself. On entry, VA healthcare was never mentioned except in passing. That’s understandable, as it’s a completely separate system. What little discussion there was about VA healthcare was limited to “they’ll treat whatever service-connected conditions you have”. Period. In the 40s/50s/60s, free healthcare for life for RETIREES and their dependents was indeed promised – at military medical facilities, “on a space-available basis”. However, when money started getting tight post-Vietnam space rather quickly became no longer available (in effect, broken promise #1). CHAMPUS (forerunner of TRICARE) was born as a result. But CHAMPUS wasn’t free – it started the requirements for cost-sharing (broken promise #2). But wait, it gets even better! By law, retirees in the 1980s and 1990s were booted off of CHAMPUS/TRICARE when they became Medicare eligible (broken promise #3). That wasn’t fixed until Congress changed Federal law and established “TRICARE for Life” in the early 2000s. Today, TRICARE now has multiple flavors – all of which include cost-sharing. One variety – TRICARE Prime – for many years has required payment of an annual fee on top of cost-sharing (broken promise #4). The above pertains to military RETIREES. Veterans who were not military retirees always had zero entitlement to any military healthcare coverage, and were promised none. They were also never promised free healthcare for anything… Read more »
My memory of the system is very much like yours, Hondo, except that my father retired prior to yours doing so. He served in both WWII and Korea but had no service related conditions, declined any health care benefits, considered it “welfare.” Yeah, his attitude is responsible for me still failing to see why we the people owe benefits to veterans other than earned retirement pay for all who earn same and/or health care for everyone with combat/service related conditions.
Yes, it sounds harsh to many who are accustomed to the nanny state, but even things like GI Bill bennies should be limited to those things we can afford and only when we can afford it. (Yeah, paying for a welfare queen’s multiple flat screen TV’s makes even less sense than paying for dependent tuition.)
Meanwhile, a friend is seriously ill, has been denied all VA benefits that he earned the hard way, except for a 10% hearing disability. He just got a letter that his military retirement pay is being reduced by the amount that the “disability” will pay for that hearing loss. Crazy system.
Thanks, Hondo.
I had the vague memory of something like that in the back of my mind. I remembered a string of broken promises, but could not put it a clearly as this.
My father was a WWII vet who did his time in Europe, got out and went into the Texas Guard until his work took him OOC. I know he never got anything from the VA – and I was too ignorant to know what help he might have received from them, if any. But this clears up what my brother and son are looking at, as well.
The blithe way that promises are made to veterans and about “Social Security”, and then broken with impunity, still makes me want to invoke a curse on all the promise breakers – although I suppose I ought to be more charitable and forgiving. But those who take advantage of the helpless have always made me mad.
In truth, some of them technically weren’t “promises” – they were caveated at the the time (“on a space-available basis”). But the caveats certainly weren’t stressed.
The situation has gotten much better since TRICARE-for-Life began. There’s still the cost-sharing and (for Prime) an annual fee, but at least now retirees aren’t getting “pitched” out of TRICARE when they become Medicare eligible. However, they are required to sign up for Medicare part B to keep TRICARE.
Back to the original questions:
“Why should the VA be providing free care for non-service-connected conditions for anyone who’s not rated as being permanently-and-totally disabled?” The VA should not under any circumstance, in my view. In fact, you can lose the words after “anyone” in your question and I’m good with it. If the illness or injury isn’t traced to a service connection by causation, not mere happenstance, then, as far as I’m concerned, bar the door to VA treatment.
“Why shouldn’t vets be required to pay for healthcare for non-service-connected stuff?” We should.
Okay, Air Cav, BEFORE the current free-for-all-regardless business started up, if you did NOT have a service-connected disability, you could get health care services from the VA but you had to pay for it.
In plain old English, if you had a bad accident and went to the VA for emergency care, they billed your health insurance policy. Even if it wasn’t an emergency, you could still get treatment for something like pneumonia, but you had to pay for it.
I don’t know when this changed. The booklets I’ve gotten from the VA don’t indicate when, but it must have been a couple of years ago that it became a free-for-all business, and now it’s a swamp full of people who have no service-connected anything, but want the freebies.
The VA does still bill private insurance if you have it.
The copayment requirements are still there. But I agree with you that enforcement seems spotty at best. And for those with “low incomes”, copayments are dramatically reduced – and are waived completely or in part for many of the VA’s priority groups (there are 8, with at least one having subgroups).
Regarding when this changed: my assessment is that it began changing in the late 1990s, when Congress started mandating VA health care for those called to active duty for deployment to the Balkans. The law was written such that it applied to anyone who deployed – and it now gives 5 years VA healthcare entitlement after separation to anyone who deployed to the Balkans or a “combat zone” in the Middle East.
I suspect that things got a whole lot “looser”, eligibility- and copayment-wise, starting in Feb 2009. I do not think this was a coincidence. I think it was by design, as a way to “jumpstart” a Federal single-payer healthcare system.
I’d add those who are rated as being permanently-and-totally disabled due to service-connected conditions to that list, as well as MoH recipients and individuals recognized by DoD as being former POWs. Other than that, I agree.
If Uncle Sam “broke it” or made it worse, he has an obligation to provide treatment. If not, no dice.
Completely agree, Hondo. Of course, that rule should also apply to civilians.
If you did not do something for me for which I have not already compensated you, I owe you nothing. Paying for the poor decisions made by others is beyond tiresome. Paying for programs designed to encourage poor decision making is insane, yet we are doing it. The only people who benefit from all these programs are bureaucrats.
“The only people who benefit from all these programs are bureaucrats.”
And the recipients….
Bingo.
When something can be gotten by telling lies, sooner or later someone will lie to get it. And the smart money’s on “sooner” rather than “later.”
Actually, many/most of the recipients ultimately do not really benefit from being kept dependent upon something they did not earn.
I just know that there are people at TAH who see this differently than the views thus far expressed. I hope they comment, using the original questions. Free cheese doesn’t cease to be free cheese b/c a Veteran is involved. I used the GI Bill, both for my education and for my original home loan. When I get planted, it will be in a gov’t hole. Does that make me a free cheeser? I’d like the answer to be no, but….
No. Taking advantage of an earned benefit is not the same as just taking advantage of something which is designed to keep you in a subservient position, dependent upon others.
Hmmm. An earned benefit. I like that.
Yep. Much like a pension. Or, from another perspective, just another form of deferred compensation.
1st, that is not a “social justice” argument. It is a libertarian/market argument that has long suggested that a free market could “solve” the problem of war through natural market mechanisms that increase the cost and reduce the benefits. WWII would have played out differently if all nations were paying the true “free market” commodity cost of oil/fuel rather than imposing rationing and diverting most production to the war at essentially the cost of production.
2nd, CATO Institute is a conservative think tank.
3rd. Obama’s plan was dumb, no defense for it. Though much of what was said about it at the time was false. It makes me cringe how close we are to privatizing Veteran care rather thane actually fixing it. A lot of money is wasted through ham fisted policies and incompetence.
4th privatization of VA care is a conservative plan being proposed by conservative groups since the Reagan era. Now that conservatives own all three branches it likely to happen. The only way to privatize the VA it with a health insurance model.
5th, I imagine that once republicans advocate for the privatization plan most of you will jump on board because it is fine as long as it is being done by republicans.
1 – What the hell are you talking about, ditz?
2 – What’s your point?
3 – Yeah, your free cheese will disappear, sport
4 – As long as YOU pay for it, fine by me
5 – As long as YOU pay for it out of YOUR pocket, I’m repeating myself.
Damn. I was gonna make chocolate chip cookies and spend some time editing and proofing a couple of articles and some chapters I wrote.
DO you have to appear out of your cave an try to start a stupid argument over nothing? And if so, why? Are you that lonesome, Boyar? If you ever have an original thought, let the world know, willya?
“It is a libertarian/market argument that has long suggested that a free market could “solve” the problem of war through natural market mechanisms that increase the cost and reduce the benefits. WWII would have played out differently if all nations were paying the true “free market” commodity cost of oil/fuel rather than imposing rationing and diverting most production to the war at essentially the cost of production.”
So, if Germany and Japan had been paying the market price for oil, rather than marching into other countries and taking what they wanted, no WW II? And if Germany had to pay for bullets to kill untold millions of its unarmed victims, rather than use gas, no holocaust?
OH, but Air Cav, that idea completely ignores the rate of inflation in Germany at the time. Not sure about Japan, but they were down to about a 6-month supply, probably broke from spending money building the Nippon Navy.
At the time, California had a lot of oil wells pumping daily. I think the Japanese plan was to hit the California coast, wasn’t it?