VA Health Benefits

[Gregory Matthews]

As a former employee  of the Department of Veterans' Affairs I have  often stated that VA health care is excellent, but that it is Congress that has caused problems that has enacted laws that make if a very complex process for a veteran to obtain health care.  The following adds another aspect to this issue:

https://www.afge.org/article/afge-rallies-to-stop-delays-in-veteran-benefits-claims/?link_id=9&can_id=bb57a8d9fec03d0dcafdbb275dbd14e2&source=email-no-shutdown-for-now-2-2-2-2-2-2-2&email_referrer=no-shutdown-for-now-2-2-2-2-2-2-2&email_subject=budget-cuts-no-way

[Gregory Matthews]

It is reported on the Internet that the Department of Veterans' Affairs employs some 27,000 people.  Eligibility for VA benefits is determined by the Section of the VA known as the Veterans/Benefit Administration and its subsection titled as the Compensation & Pension Service.   This is the  section of the VA that decides eligibility for health care.  I have attempted to discover the number of employees in this section and I have not been able to obtain a figure.  However, I can tell you that there are thousands of people who are paid to simple decide whether or not a veteran is eligible for a specific health care service.  E.G.  If a veteran needs eye glasses, a determination needs to be made as to whether or not the government will pay that veteran for eye glasses.  But, it does not end there.  A second determination needs to be made as to whether or not a veteran who is eligible for eye glasses is eligible for eye glasses at this point in time and potentially whether or not the veteran is eligible for sun glasses as eligibility for regular eyeglasses may not mean that the veteran is eligible for sunglasses.   

Folks the government is spending huge sums of money for thousands of people to determine what in health care it should pay for and what it should not  pay for.

If Congress would simplify the eligibility requirements, the government could save huge sums of money that are not going only for administration.

A hospital CEO was once complaining to me as to how he could provide health care to veterans at a lower cost than the government spends.  I challenged him and asked him how he would determine whether or not to provide the health care.  His answer was simple:  Is this person a veteran?  Does this person need this health care?  I then gave him a simplified version of VA eligibility requirements.  He had no response.  He simply did not understand the complexity of the requirements that Congress has placed upon eligibility for VA health care.

This issue works down to the individual clinic where a decision has to be made as to the provision of specific care and how such may affect the clinic budget.  The result is this is that a veteran may be refused specific care in one clinic, but obtain that care in another clinic.  I could give you specific examples of this.

 

 

 

[Gary K]

Welcome to finding out how socialism really works, Gregory.   Every government program does exactly the same thing.  Every government healthcare program has its own "death panels" made up of non-medical, impossible-to-hold-accountable, bureaucrats making the decisions as to who gets helped and who doesn't.  It's government bureaucracy at its finest.  Social security does this.  Medicaid does it.  Medicare does it.  Bureaucrats run the systems and they make the every day decisions on medications, treatments, etc....  What government funds, government controls.  Get used to it.  You want more government funded programs, you get more government control of everything.

This is true wherever socialism reigns.  Brussels bureaucrats decide almost every aspect of life for every European.  This is why Brexit happened, and this is why we see Poland and Hungary on the verge of telling the EU to go jump in a lake.

[Gregory Matthews]

Gary, I have spent many years serving on the Ethics Committee  of the VA hospital where I worked, and a shorter period of time serving on the Ethics Committee of a private (not SDA) hospital where I once worked.  Our struggles were real.  At times we did not have a perfect solution.  We simply had to take things as they were at that moment and attempt to forge a response to the question which had been brought to us.  Writing from this perspective I find your perspective, as you have stated it in the post above to be both simplistic and factually incorrect in most (not 100%) of what you have posted.

But, that is O.K.  We can disagree here in CA.

 

[lazarus]

On 6/28/2017 at 0:02 PM, Gary K said:

 Brussels bureaucrats decide almost every aspect of life for every European. 

This is simply not true.

When you last visited Europe, what evidences of this did you see?