Root: We Are All Veterans Now (CommieCare will be 1,000 times worse)

The national scandal and disgrace at the VA (Department of Veterans Affairs) is the perfect example of the disaster that awaits America with ObamaCare. We're about to find out what it's like to receive health care from the government.

The VA scandal is proof that with government in charge of health care, it will bankrupt the entire country.

Countless Americans will die through bureaucratic incompetence, neglect, long waiting lists and fraud.

Sadly, the VA scandal is nothing new. Conservatives have warned about the dangers of government-run health care for many years, often using the VA as Exhibit A.

My bestselling book, “The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide” was released in April of 2013. Here’s what I wrote then:

“Take Veterans Affairs. A federal appeals court has ruled the VA suffers from ‘unchecked incompetence.’ That incompetence is killing our brave veterans. I bet you didn’t know 18 veterans commit suicide per day. Or that 85,000 vets are on waiting lists for care. Even a severely depressed vet can wait eight weeks to see a psychiatrist. Still want government to run your health care?”

I actually liked the VA for a rather short time period from 2005-2007....it was running fairly efficiently and the primary care system was comparable to a family doctor setting..

Then in 2008 in a gradual way, the system became annoying at first and then pretty much useless to me. You could not cut the BS with a chainsaw. The doctors their support staff seemed totally PO’d and acted more like they were being forced to work there.

At some point, I had missed a appointment due to a car breakdown. I called to reschedule and could not get them to give me a date, so I put it on the back burner since I still had enough meds and there was no rush.

About three weeks later I get a letter saying that my meds had been canceled and If I did not report to the VA within 48 hours, I would lose my privileges.

I immediately called and asked WTF! I was put through to some snarky doctor who essentially accused me of intentionally blowing off a drug test that they had planned for the appointment I missed. I tried to tell him that I had no friggin knowledge that they had scheduled a test for that day and I did not blow it off intentionally.

He told me that If I did not report that afternoon, he was canceling all my meds and reporting me as a “potential drug abuser”!!!!

Well......LOL....that VA hospital was over 100 miles away from me...200 mile round trip and I told him that I was not prepared to make that trip today and would he give me a appointment for next week...he said no!....Either be here this afternoon as ordered or he would...again....cancel my meds..

I was fuming....absolutely flabbergasted.. I told him that I was and that I did not appreciate how he was treating me on a personal level and that I would have to do some thinking about my participation in the VA system.

I hung up the phone and that was the last time I ever let my shadow darken the doorway of a VA hospital.

I engaged a local doctor, Over a a couple years I weaned myself off all medications and after that, I stopped using the medical care system entirely as I also noticed the same things occurring throughout as Obama Care has been implemented.

If I have a problem, and I do occasionally, I go to the friggin emergency room, get good care, see a doctor and get meds if I need them. I generally try to refrain from using meds, largely because if you must, you also have to take the BS that come with it and I refuse to do that anymore..

So what it boils down to is that our government through numerous agencies like the FDA, DEA, and congress has completely upset the applecart as it applies to medical care in most every way imaginable..

You are particularly screwed if you need medications for pain related to a chronic condition that cannot be fixed or they see the cost as prohibitive under any insurance, Medicare, or VA..

If you pay cash...you can generally still get what you need, or want. Eventually they will find a way to prohibit that as well.

So I just quit!

And I am still breathing.....but my blood pressure, (one of the conditions I was being treated for) has improved as the result of not having to deal with these dunderheads.

If you ever want to go to the VA again and you miss your appointment or know you’re going to be late, do not show up late. They will give you a hassle. Go to the emergency room and tell them you’re having pains and don’t know the source of the problem. You’re not lying because at our age we all have pains. When you’re seeing the ER doctor then tell him what meds you’re out of and anything else bothering you. You will get no hassle. It’s when you report to primary care later than 15 or 20 minutes that the clerk has VA rules he’s supposed to follow and will have to reschedule you........no matter how far you’re traveled. I use to work in primary care checking in patients and I never sent a vet away without care. He either was seen by the doctor after I got through talking with the doctor, or I sent him to the ER (which they didn’t like for us to do). I caught some flake occasionally by some sour pus in the ER, but I could have cared less. Another thing wrong with the VA is a lot of the top-level management staff are Vietnam-era draft-dodgers and most, have worked at the VA since Christ was a corporal. The vast majority of the workers in any VA have also never been in the military. Working in a veterans hospital it helps to be a vet. But that is not the way it is. I knew so many retired NCOs that worked in the VA that could have been doing the same job that some GS-14 was doing, but most of these retired NCOs would rather be mopping a floor that putting up with the beauracratic BS that goes with any high-playing federal job.

Yeah NKP...I understand what you are saying, and yes, there are things you can do, ie: attitudes you can portray and that medication/ER game is one of them but I just can't do that stuff. It's just not my way.

Of course, I could do these things if I was caring for someone other than myself, but to do go through that for me would do little and probably cause me to pass out or blow a aneurysm..lol....just not something I can do and that is not a new thing with me. I have avoided bureaucratic nonsense as my own personal “rule # 4” for all of my existence.

I suppose if I were unconscious and unresponsive and my wife took me to a VA hospital, I would probably go along with it...for a while....LOL...

I think I would rather take a dirt nap..

My father passed away in 1968. He was 51 years old. A WW2 veteran. Discharged in 1945, right before the war ended with a medical discharge. He had a bad heart. He would write letters home to my mother and tell her he would be getting a check for the rest of his life and her and the kids would be taken care of. Well that check he thought he would be getting never came. I never knew what he went through trying to get a VA disability check until after my mother passed away a couple of years ago and I started going through all of her personal belongings. I found a box full of letters to the VA where he was trying to get a disability check. Time after time he was denied. First the military passed the buck after telling him he would be getting a check for a medical discharge, then the hassle with the VA started. He wrote letters from congressmen and senators, all to no avail. His denial for any benefits was due to the fact that he had answered “yes” on a pre-induction physical when it asked about prior health problems He told them he had rhumatic fever as a child. The VA told him his heart was “probably” damaged from the fever. He would write back to them and say the Army took him to fight a war and didn’t care what health “problems” he had in the past. He would tell them he qualified expert with an M-14 and that’s all they cared about. He told them they had no way of knowing how his heart was damaged, that it could have been damaged on active duty, and the point of the matter was he was medically discharged and there was no record of the reason why he received the medical, just that he was medically discharged. This fighting back and forth with the VA went on for about 10 years before he finally gave up. He never received anything in VA compensation. He never received anything in compensation from the US Army. He suffered with heart trouble for the rest of his short life and died in the VA hospital in Fayetteville, NC on Christmas Eve, 1968. He had a heart attack waiting to be transferred to the Durham VA for heart surgery. He was always proud that he served his country in time of war and remained a proud veteran to the day he died. He blamed the Army more than the VA. I think today he could have gotten someone to help him with his claim. Back then vets had no one to help them with anything. He never mentioned anything to any of his children. I still miss him after all these years and I have outlived him by 13 years. And he was a proud republican!

Yup....

Your Dad was a proud man and I would have enjoyed his company...as I am sure you would have as well. It's a shame he died so early.

Yes, there is a lot more help on the disability claims these days...I tried briefly, only once and was denied of course.

The US Army hospital in Frankfurt operated on my knees and they sort of botched the job on one of them which coincidentally is a major source of pain and disability today. The VA refused to touch it..

They would give me a hip replacement, (it was hurt somehow as well) but they wanted to pull out all my teeth before they would do that, which really would be a useless operation because I could not use the knee for anything other than a hinged prop that I could not put weight on for more than 15 seconds..

Well, that was in 2000.....and I still have my teeth, my bad hip and now I have two bad knees....LOL...the other one could not take the strain of doing all the work.

I have heart issues as well, (fairly minor now with atrial fib) and I got the same crap about potential damage from scarlet fever...My mother thought I might have had it as a child. I made the mistake of telling a doctor this at some point and now it's part of my record.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I was injured building a Baily Bridge...(in deep sand)...so you think a disability claim should be a cut and dry thing, but apparently there are no records to prove that contention...except for the surgeries in Frankfort and the fact that I had broken my leg as child...lol..

I don't blame anyone for anything, as it takes too much energy to do that. I have a had a decent life and am married to a great woman for 35 years next month.

I don't need the VA and they sure don't need me. It was getting to the point where they were thinking of escorting me out on one occasion when I rejected some baloney they were attempting to shove on me so it has been better to just part ways..I have had my fill of government anyway...

It's hard to avoid government, but I am trying my best to do so.I figure I will live longer if I do...

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