Posted on 08/31/2015 8:25:07 AM PDT by xzins
Retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson told the Dave Ramsey show on Wednesday that the Department of Veterans Affairs should be folded into the Department of Defense and VA facilities should only be used for specialized care like traumatic brain injuries and limb replacement procedures.
“The size of government has to be reduced significantly. There’s a lot of stuff that we’re doing that doesn’t make any sense. We have a Department of Veterans Affairs. We don’t need a Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans Affairs should be in under the Department of Defense, and it should be smooth transition,” said Carson.
The Republican presidential candidate said the U.S. should also examine how it cares for soldiers and that they should be in a support system immediately when they enlist, especially when they go into combat.
“We need to be looking at the way that we take care of soldiers. You know 14 percent down recruitment for our voluntary Army right now. Why? Because they’re looking at what we’re doing to our veterans,” he said.
“When a person applies to the military, they should be in a support system immediately from day one, particularly when they go through combat, because that’s when all the trauma is occurring, and we should have people in place a year before their time of discharge to be working on their integration back into society,” Carson added.
“There shouldn’t be a period of unemployment when they come out of the military, and they should have a health savings account, which allows them to go to any medical facility in the country, and we should be delighted to take care of them,” he said.
“We should use the VA facilities for specialized care for traumatic brain injury, limb replacements, and research,” Carson added.
As a veteran and a military retiree, I see his logic, although some facts may have been presented to him. DoD has been “dumping” its problems on an underfunded and mis-managed VA for years. His point is that DoD disowns the problems they created the minute they discharge you. That is WRONG! Don’t need an overgrown bureaucracy of its own. DoD does fine with Tricare, although not what I signed up for 40 years ago. It could be a model for VA medical care also. That way you don’t have to travel hundreds of miles out of your way to see a “Government” doctor that doesn’t care.
Honestly the VA should be relegated to servicing paperwork and process. Who cares what group they are under as long as us Veterans are served our due reward.
Veterans would be much better served if we can simply make appointments at ANY clinic we need to, and present our VA “Insurance Card” as payment. Let private business handle it.
No more VA doctors and nurses, no more long wait times for substandard care. No more being pushed off to the side.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.
Carson is right. The VA is an abysmal failure.
As with any good idea, the bureaucracy around it eventually ruined it.
The VA is a good idea, but the bureaucracy stifles great opportunity. We need someone willing to fire bureaucrats as far as the eye can see.
When they sit down and fight for budget dollars who do you see fighting for veteran dollars AS THEIR FIRST PRIORITY if the VA doesn’t exist?
I see no one.
Can it be streamlined, improved, and made more efficient? Sure. But, the DOD won’t fight for VA dollars as its FIRST PRIORITY any more than will the Health Department.
Actually this was discussed in several comments in this discussion. #70 for example. But maybe I should have stayed more focused on the main discussion.
But I will tell you, any politician being supported, funded and bought into by outside influences like Mr. Carson is, who is suggesting big changes affecting our Veterans or any big issue changes, should be examined with extreme suspicion.
“None of this should be taken to mean that the VA is well run. It isn’t. It’s full of waste, fraud, and abuse. It should be cleaned up.”
I can’t believe a conservative with any knowledge of the VA bureaucracy would think the answer is reforming the bureaucracy. I’ll readily agree that turning it’s functions over to the pentagon is pretty much the worst way possible to solve the issues, but the goal should be to tear down the bureaucracy, not reform it. It’s almost inconceivable that any US institution could spend $170 billion a year to give poor-mediocre health coverage to 6.5 million patients. That’s $26000 per patient for crappy health care service. It’d be far more efficient to shut most of the bureaucracy down and cover the full costs of a private care plan of the veteran’s choice.
The VA is also protected by the Department of Injustice. Major General problem. Then consider the inspector general being on the same payroll.
yowza.
Yeah. Me too. Keep them separate. They have two entirely different missions.
I really have not made up my mind about who I support, but I do believe you have understated the executive experience of Dr. Carson. He wasn’t just a neurosurgeon, he was the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital (youngest director of a major department at that hospital at age 33). On one surgery, he organized and directed a surgical team of 70 to separate cojoined twins. This is certainly more than just being a neighborhood doctor.
Kind of on another subject, you also mentioned that in running a medical office “he may have hired an office manager.” The President also hires managers to run the day-to-day operations of the government. I doubt if the President spends more than 10 minutes on any given topic in a day (unless Obama is out playing golf). You have to know how to delegate. Trump would know this - but then, even Jeb would know how to do that after being a governor.
Still, the staff alone is 20 times more than DoughtyOne’s estimate of 5 people, and he had other duties besides the neuro staff. Plus, executive ability is a learnable skill apart from numbers. Many MBAs get out of grad school and step into jobs managing hundreds or thousands at age 24. The numbers under management make a difference, but not an absolute difference.
I would support that if this were done in a straight forward manner. Not a private care plan which included a 1000 pages of private care legalese, restrictions and qualifiers.
The devil is in the details.
Except the vets aren’t getting the money.
Have you seen any signs of all the money actually helping vets?
You mean no more physician’s assistants and nurses. They have 40,000 job openings but also consider the fact that Obamacare is destroying the once great medical field and many good docs are quitting.
I am a retired Army officer (some active, some reserve) and can see some merit in Dr. Carson’s idea. I also understand something about how the budget works. If there was a separate line item under the Defense budget that gave them funds for Veterans care, the rest of the DoD could not touch that money. In essence, what Dr. Carson is proposing is to cut the head off of the Veterans Department and move the structure under the DoD top civilian leadership. That could work, if it were structured correctly.
If we are going to do something like that, I would rather take the rest of Dr. Carson’s idea of providing the bulk of Veterans’ non-specialized care through the civilian world. Keep the VA structure for certain specialized care and research.
Of course the easiest fix would be to put people in charge of the VA who are more interested in the Veterans and less interested in the bureaucracy, then give them free reign to hire people without regard to the Federal hiring system and fire anyone at will.
Yep. even now the Armed Forces are being distracted with nation building, etc.
So what. Would that make every director or manager of some high-end engineering firm in LA, Dallas or NY who oversees/ manages 95 or so people, be a qualifier for President of the United States? I don't think so.
More importantly, you better look at who specifically are the people that have bought, funded and bankrolled Carson's campaign. The devil is in the details.
You say persons who attempt put “qualifiers” to restrict these benefits should be opposed with vengeance. I think the key word involves the word “qualified”.
Persons eligible for life long medical benefits should be defined,vetted and given placements based on predetermined standards. Their status could be reviewed and changed based upon any new information or conditions.
I know that there are at least a few who receive veteran benefits despite the fact that they had not served a full tour of duty,were neither honorably or dishonorable discharged and left because they were worried about some relationship back in their old home town.
I learned of one of these men as I investigated some info about drug dealers picking up prescriptions from vets in their VA housing on the first of the month and giving out cash that was then used for heroin and other street drugs.
This is a common consequence of public service employment. Employees feel their jobs and raises are dependent on how hard they appear to be working. No one minds padding the numbers the management and admin staff get bigger bonuses and better assignments and the worker bees get rewarded too. It is interesting and sad.
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