Posted on 07/10/2010 11:47:12 PM PDT by Nachum
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government is taking what President Barack Obama calls "a long overdue step" to aid veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, making it easier for them to receive federal benefits.
The changes that Veteran Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki will announce Monday fulfill "a solemn responsibility to provide our veterans and wounded warriors with the care and benefits they've earned when they come home," Obama said in his weekly radio and online address Saturday.
The new rules will apply not only to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but also those who served in previous conflicts.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
The list, ping
Yup.
Betcha that inspires them all to vote for him 2012.
If you drug them a lot more than they are already doing, they won’t care anymore...and many more of them will commit suicide, or even murder someone else when they do.
They aren’t “treating” these guys. They are stupifying them; suppressing their natural coping mechanisms and natural inhibitors.
They deserve better.
I work in vet's services.
This is nothing for vets and all for the limp wristed “mental health” profiteers and pharmaceutical companies.
Trust me.
Like I said.....
“a long overdue step”
Man, he’s got that line of bull down so well, he might even be able to parrot it WITHOUT the Teleprompter.
Do not trust this SOB or any politic SOB who says "Make It Easier". Unless you enjoy a knife in your back.
Let's see the fine print first.
Just diverting attention away from the fact that they will be taxed on all their therapy aids including prosthetics.
Pay no attention to the talk, it’s always a far cry from reality.
Oh, great. It took years to get them (Army, VA, etc) to quit trying to convince me I had Gulf War Syndrome. Now we get round 2 on PTSD.
You don’t want to be on the PTSD list. You just may lose your 2nd Amendment rights.
Thank you for the take. So it’s a scheme to dope up vets.
“A study last year by the RAND Corp. think tank estimated that nearly 20 percent of returning veterans, or 300,000, have symptoms of PTSD or major depression.”
That practically makes him a drug pusher.
*SIGH* I do so loathe the ‘Kenyan in Chief’ we’re currently stuck with.
The damage he is doing to our country is beyond any imagining!
I’m a Desert Storm Vet. Even if I was technically nuts (some will debate you on that point, LOL!) I’d never get involved with this stuff due to them wanting to drug me out of my mind. And you can bet your bottom dollar they’e make sure I’m no longer armed against the TRUE enemy of all Americans - our own Government!
That’s what he says he’s going to do.
What is he actually going to do? In addition to inputing the cost on your W2.
You are soooo right.
There are pitiful FEW services for vets with PTSD...very scattered and limited therapy, waiting lists of MONTHS to get into treatment programs, virtually NO family therapy or support services. They don’t even have a van to take the vet to the services if he can’t drive....Give me a f...g break!
What a bunch of BS, Shinseki is a total phony! At least with James Peak we had a massive increase in staff hiring! Uh, has come to a grinding halt.
That is true. People taking drugs for depression can easily be restricted from having firearms. People do not generally realize this.
These drugs are addictive. Once you begin taking them, you are technicslly an addict. The FEDs have access to psychiatrists’ records and if you go through a check, you can be denied a firearm on that basis, even if you never did anything wrong in your entire life.
PTSD is considered a “mental illness” and once you have gone into treatment, all of your records are open to the government, state and federal.
State laws vary, but trust me, a Vet, diagnosed with PTSD or NOT, in this country under this government is considered an enemy of the state.
I bet you have seen this.....
Some homeless walking chunk of garbage comes in and says he’s a “vietnam vet” and all of sudden tons of he getting tons of reasources.
Or some kid who claims to be just back from Iraq.
Very rarely do they get questioned by anyone who is there about what really happened to them...they just get rubber stamped, a bottle of pills and a see you later!
Many of these guys and gals are fakers.
Many more have a mild case that can be treated.
Very very few are for real, break down PTSD cases...and those dont get the focused attention they really need.
It’s really messed up out there folks!
I bet you have seen this.....
Some homeless walking chunk of garbage comes in and says he’s a “vietnam vet” and all of sudden tons of he getting tons of reasources.
Or some kid who claims to be just back from Iraq.
Very rarely do they get questioned by anyone who is there about what really happened to them...they just get rubber stamped, a bottle of pills and a see you later!
Many of these guys and gals are fakers.
Many more have a mild case that can be treated.
Very very few are for real, break down PTSD cases...and those dont get the focused attention they really need.
It’s really messed up out there folks!
Not accurate at all...
To get VA services the vetran needs to prove with documentation they are a veteran. To get a PTSD diagnosis there is a series of evaluations...the vets then can get excellant treatment...not just “pills”..the problem is the limited services for the volume of vets needing them.
That is what it’s supposed to be, but unfortunatley you are wrong.
The director of the Veteran’s Hospital can “err on the side of the vet”.
In the Seattle VA system this meant that when cities like Tacoma did a homeless sweep in 2000, all the bums had to do was say they were veterans and they got sent to the VA care facilities like the doms instead of jail while the dd214’s were requested from national archaives.
Then when 23% came back as not vets the directors could kick them loose....after spending hundreds of thousands on on vets...let alone other than honorable discharges and uncharacterized discharges.
So dont tell me it’s not true.
I was in finance there and saw the numbers and cases first hand.
In fact I testified under oath to a congressman about it in 2001.
For all the good it did.
I believe your experience.
since 2000 there have been a massive increase in Homelesss Vet programs with staff. This has changed the situation you described.
In Fl it would be very difficult for a non-vet to game the system because of the intense screening, the fact that the majority of vets who were the back log for homeless services have been processed.
In fact, if someone comes to a VA hospital, the only way they would be not refused would be the ER for a true emergency and then they would be sent to the local non-VA hospital when stabalized.
Seattle is the heart of Liberalism and actually our whole country is so entitlement focused that it is hard to deal with “the homeless’ or anyone else that does not wish to contribute to society.
Thank you for your testimony to a congressman in 2001. I think that did a lot of good, from what has changed! give yourself some credit!
Having said that, it appears that VA to VA can operationalzie their services sometimes differently.
Again you might be right in your hospital but overall you are wrong.
The VA mental health institutions are so bad that the VA pays WA State to build and maintain a PTSD network that can respond to vets within hours of a call? (Its actually a great program ran by real heros)
http://www.dva.wa.gov/ptsd_counseling.html
Otherwise the vets are waiting months to get their pill and a prayer.
Then when they get in and see a shrink they usually are getting a wet behind the ears anti-war first job outside of college kid, that looks at the vet like a ticking bomb or something of contempt. Or a QVC contractor that makes a few check marks on a “rating” sheet and sends them off to wait 4 months for an answer.
At least this is how it works in the Seattle, Portland, Alaska, California, and AZ VA’s.
Maybe yours is better, but the reports for groups like http://www.vawatchdog.org/ would seem to say otherwise.
we are really not in disagreement on this.
My post #19 was not well written. There are SOME instances of good treatment of PTSD. The problem is so FEW of the Vets with PTSD can get that. My post #5 detailed that.
The hypocrisy of this administration’s claim that PTSD tx is “so available” and the reality that exists in the Va is why I hate Shineski...with Bush and Peak there was a dramatic move forward to increase a lot of mental health services!
One of the major problems with the VA program for treatment of mental problems and in some cases treatment of physical problems is the conflict between treatment and compensation. The worse the condition, the more the compensation. If treatment works and the condition becomes better, compensation is reduced. With a tax free cash payment of up to and often over $30,000 a year and other benefits worth at least $15,000 a year, in many cases the incentives are weighted heavily against getting well.
I understand that I am generalizing and that there are many worthy cases. My point is the contrast between the VA treatment system where there is increased income and no increased cost for getting worse while in the civilian system, there is normally decreased income and increased cost as the condition worsens.
True
And please all readers note that despite my disgust and scorn at the VA system I MEAN NO INSULT to Ex-Hippie and the folks like him that keep a wretched system at least partially working and getting what help they can to whom they can.
EH please accept my public apologies for my ill temper.
Semper Fi
True
And please all readers note that despite my disgust and scorn at the VA system I MEAN NO INSULT to Ex-Hippie and the folks like him that keep a wretched system at least partially working and getting what help they can to whom they can.
EH please accept my public apologies for my ill temper.
Semper Fi
I am glad you are posting and I believe our discussion has been very worthwhile.
Your many points are valid and your concern for our veterans is sincere. I take no offense in your comments, your passion was better articulated than many of my rants.
The gift within anger is justice. The gift with rage is outrage. Both are needed.
Those who have the trite and easy answers, such as the progressives who think they can create a perfect social order, are more at ease than we, ...who struggle with the imperfect and try to maintain our empathy with the wounded, and rage for their justice.
Thanks
Often things written can be misinterpreted.
Just keeping things clear.
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