Posted on 02/28/2014 7:28:03 AM PST by grundle
If you want to see where government-run healthcare gets you, look no further than what the VA is doing to Airman Brian Kolfage after he spoke out against Obama. Our veterans who sustained injuries in combat deserve the best treatment we can give them, but the VA just sent Purple Heart recipient Brian Kolfage a bill for $4,000.
Here’s the letter he just received from the VA:
Kolfage is an outspoken critic of the Obama administration and wants to know why his records were pulled in the first place. He’s written about the whole story on his Facebook page (emphasis mine):
Two months ago I received a letter from the VA stating they over paid me and that I needed to provide evidence proving otherwise. So I mailed in everything showing that in fact I wasn’t over paid what they were stating, hard evidence too. I then get a letter stating its been resolved. Now today I get this letter showing that they are taking money out of my disability compensation that I receive for losing my three limbs… I call the number listed and the automated system says call back another day, WTF, you’re taking my money and you can’t even answer the phones. This is the garbage that so many veterans have been dealing with over the past few years. And its complete [expletive] that someone can lose half their body for their country then they pull our records to nickel and dime us because the government is broke. After dealing with this for over a month I’ve decided to share my experience. This is exactly why we do not need a full blown government healthcare system run by the IRS, because they will target opposition, they will mess up, and they will take your money even if its by mistake. Then it will take months to even correct it, and this is just the VA, imagine this on a scale 30,000 times larger!
If this is how our nation treats our most severely wounded think about how they’ll treat those who are everyday citizens. The only people who are truly taken care of these days are those who control us and are politicians, they ensure their own are granted every privilege that they can come up with while screwing those who are trying to survive. IS THIS THE CHANGE YOU VOTED FOR? please tell WHY my record was pulled for one thing, and then a background check was done, then my money is being taken… for what? FREEDOM OF SPEECH!?
To his credit, Kolfage makes it clear that his objective isn’t to get any money out of this. He’s not looking for sympathy, just to expose how corrupt the VA is. He turned down one twitter user’s offer to pay for his medical expenses:
No surprise...my late brother-in-law (career Army combat engineer) was exposed directly to Agent Orange during his service in Vietnam. Before he died in 1988, he filed a claim with the VA. Took years, but his widow finally received benefits almost a decade later (she passed away in 2012). My brother-in-law was a longtime smoker, but the VA couldn’t rule out the possibility that Agent Orange played a role in the cancer that eventually claimed his life.
Don’t know what options your cousin’s family has at this point, but I’d encourage them to keep fighting, if possible. The VA is a maze on its best days; too many dubious or fraudulent claims seem to sail through, while others (like your cousin’s) are rejected.
It drives me absolutely crazy that liberals don’t understand that this is how government-run institutions operate, and have operated, since time immemorial. I’ve known this since I was 17. What’s wrong with people?
Thanks for the link.
...and “SSS”...
Sorry, but I have family members who work for the VA and they tell me that the VA has “equal oppurtunity screw-ups” all the time. When I ask them “what do you mean by ‘equal oppurunity screw-ups’,” they respond, “The VA screws everyone equally regardless of race, creed, religion, or whatever [yes, I paraphrased the comments in quotes.]
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