Health Care Inquiry

There is not a more unhappy being
than a superannuated idol
--Joseph Addison

Each organism raises its head
over a field of corpses, smiles into the sun,
and declares life good
--Elias Canetti
_________________

Obama's new health care initiatives have Ranger questioning the continued existence of the Department of Veterans Affairs health care system.

If health care is really reformed, why not treat veterans like every other citizen? Universal access to health care should obviate the need for a separate veterans system, which would then seem superfluous.

The counter argument is that veteran's health needs require special treatment -- issues like atomic and chemical exposure (depleted uranium, for example), post traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury are but a few of these. Another key DVA issue is disability determination, to include service-connected compensation, but this issue could stand apart from its health care function.

Ranger requests input from those familiar with how other nations handle veterans health care issues. How are they funded, and is their treatment apart from that of the general populace? How are veterans treated specially, if at all?

Do veterans receive health care beyond that received by non-military citizens? Is the level of treatment received by veterans abroad sufficient? Does it exceed that received in the U.S. in any way?

Input is appreciated to help Ranger put this issue in a global perspective.

I'll take my answers off the air.

[Cross-posted @ MilPub.]

We Were Soldiers Once and Young

What you need
Do you know I got it?
All I'm askin'
Is for a little respect when you come home
--Respect, Aretha Franklin

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield
--Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson
_______________

A continuation of the post, "Pain in the Neck":

After months of hassle, the Department of Veterans Affairs has authorized half of the original authorized treatment for service-connected, parachute-related cervical spine injuries. Mighty magnanimous this authorization, which costs the VA no more than $70 monthly outlay. So chiropractic is approved; massage, pending.

Vets must fight to get their treatment -- this isn't right at any level. Service-connected vets must first fight to get our disability ratings, often waiting years for adjudication, then must continually battle to insure that authorized care keeps coming his way.

The hullabaloo started when my primary VA healthcare provider claimed that directives disallowed her authorization of outside treatment. The director of the Tallahassee VA Outpatient Clinic seconded this, but disallowed Ranger from reviewing the referenced documents. Why? -- National Security issues? At no time was Ranger provided with or allowed to see the documents from HQ DVA that my local authorities kept blaming for the denial of my treatment.

How many people will maintain an aggressive posture and fight for their rightful treatment? Many won't, or can't. The system precisely sucks when we must agitate -- even to the level of elected representatives -- to settle these mundane issues. Everything is a fight in this adversarial system. This is not the way to treat people in need of palliative care.

The system is corrupt. If it were confined to my sorry ass, I'd laugh it off and move out, but it is not. The problem is systemic, and presumably based on saving a buck on the back of a vet denied a needed procedure or assistance.

It is an unfortunate dilemma that most DVA personnel seem caring and want to do the right thing, however, the bureaucratic shuffle dwarfs the human dimension. The system will continue to degenerate as everything seems to be on an ad hoc basis, and it does not look like budgets have projected the onslaught to come. This is a national shame.

We carry the history of the U.S. Army in our bodies, yet this is our reward. We who earned battle streamers carried on today's colors, have become an inconvenience in our age. Cheers go to the photogenic young rucked up bucks, but not the ailing ones, the reminders of our failures, then and now. We were soldiers then; now, we are old men. McCarthy was right -- this is no country for old men.

Until our veterans receive the level of care administered to the ruling elite of Congress and the Executive branch, the concept of honorable treatment for vets is nothing but a sham.

A Slow Song

Jim, Lisa, Pappy (2006)

Passion has helped us, but can do so no more.
It will in the future be our enemy.
Reason -- sold,  calculating, unimpassioned reason -- 
must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense
--Abraham Lincoln

Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song
--Killing Me Softly, Roberta Flack

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields were glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose
--To An Athlete Dying Young, A. E. Housman
______________

There are times when sadness overpowers me, and my center aches and rolls in anguish. Such was the evening of 11/06, when the past interested with the present.

My old friend called, a man that fought in three wars as a combat Infantryman, fought blistering sun, freezing temperatures seemingly beyond human endurance and faced and escaped death on hundreds of occasions. His business was dealing death from a rifle, and it was my pleasure to serve with him both overseas and stateside. He taught me more about soldiering than did any Army school, this man who was the very definition of a soldier.

During his tour in the Republic of Vietnam he earned the Distinguished Service Cross while with the 101st Airborne Division. While there, he was exposed to the defoliant Agent Orange, and his cancer was presumed to be acquired in the service to his country and the Army.

About six years ago he underwent several operations to treat complications from his abdominal wounds received in the Korean War, the result of shrapnel inflicted by North Korean tanks. Later, his prostate cancer was treated by the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Memphis, where he underwent a radioactive seeding procedure.

Three months ago he was operated on by a specialist outside of the DVA system who told him the cancer had spread to his bladder, and the the pellets had "burned" his intestines. His bladder is now history, and his condition less-than optimal.

The news is currently full of the killings at Ft. Hood, but it is a fact that my friend is every bit the victim as are any of those shooting victims. However, his story will never make it to any news report. He is being slowly killed by a system that discards soldiers after they cease to be useful.

Would any President, Vice President or congressman suffer similar indignities to their bodies without an ensuing hue and cry of "injustice!" My friend did everything and more that was ever asked of him, and this is his thanks. My sorrow is not for the poor treatment alone, but for a nation that allows such indignities to be inflicted upon them.

When Ranger hears his old friend struggling for breath over a telephone connection, it becomes evident that the parade has passed him by. It will be one of the hardest things I've done in my life to visit this man knowing that his passing will take a part of me with him.

Ranger is bitter and filled with tears that cannot flow, and if he were to walk away from these facts, then he would be less than the man who once walked with heroes. I do not believe in an afterlife, but men like this one must go somewhere better than where we are now.