VA Halts $2 Billion in Cuts: What This Means for Veteran Healthcare

32 Comments

1. THANK YOU Benjamin Krause FROM ALL THE VETERANS OUTHERE

2. They should have cut more than $2B. the VA should be shutdown it is terrible agency almost the same or worse than the Corrupt DOJ and the FBI under Biden

3. I disagree with every commenter that has commented on this article.

   Commenters who bellyache and complain on this forum bring unnecessary shade against the VA and the honorable VA Secretary with their despicable comments that are based on absolutely no credible facts.

   After.being drafted my life was saved by the doctors at Walter Reed Army Hospital and my life has been prolonged for over a half century since my ETS by the VA.

   The tremendous care I have received from the Dallas VA Hospital since 1975 has kept me alive through major surgeries, a long stint in intensive care, and monthly follow-up care from my primary care physician and the Dallas Cardiac Care that I am personally convinced, from experience, cannot be matched by any medical care I could submit to outside the VA.

   Like my mother taught me while I was growing up on a farm in Palo Pinto County:

   “If you can’t think of something good to say about someone, don’t say anything at all.”

   Mother was right.

   Sorry to see that so many here didn’t have a mother like mine to teach them something before they entered basic training.

   1. My personal treatment is on the same level as yours, although not as intensive.
      VA Puget Sound has been very good to me, but location seems to be a factor with an individual veterans care.
      As a fellow veteran, I’m glad that you’re receiving the care that you deserve.
      Best wishes to you

   2. Ref: “despicable comments that are based on absolutely no credible facts”. I was NOT a draftee I entered the service voluntarily. I served from 1966 to 2003, my comments are credible and truthful and can be documented fully. The VA is a entity that has failed the VETERAN repeatedly. As for me in the most current engagement with the VA, they ( their Staff of incompetents and substandard medical staff that cannot be retained) I filed legal complaint with the US IG, the VA IG, the Director of my local VA, the Secretary of the VA, the VA office of Veteran Experience, the Patient Advocate, Human Resources of the VA DOCUMENTING each event of their violation of Federal Employee Standards, the violation of my US Constitutional Rights and the violations of medical standards. In 57 double sided letters sent to the Director and all the above listed Agency and people, in 2.5 years to date NOT ONE OF THEM sent a reply to all this time, date and location of these abuses of their office staff. The VA is only for the VA, by the VA for the benefit of the VA and its staff, they only care about keeping their jobs, they enforce their own version of the law and are only accountable to themselves at the expense of the Veterans. Your comment is insulting to all Veterans that have voi9ced their concerns and suffered by the hands of the VA, hey I would not have expected less from a draftee.

4. The veteran shit is just to get you in there so they can use you as pseudo intellectual cannon fodder and guinea pig. They make money running you around in a house of smoke and mirrors. They’ll hold a vegetable up in front of Congress and cry just to justify the most massive scam in American history!!!!

5. It wasn’t too long ago the VA bragged about how many people they’d treated for schizophrenia…as if they hadn’t really been before. Their big kick was PTSD during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and from what I heard from the Vietnam veterans, the VA actually performing its function in that area was historically lacking. Who knows how many people have worked fraudulently and were derelict over decades. They’ll get serious intermittently then go back to denial of care and abuse when they perceive that the budget isn’t enough to do anything else but put food on their table there at VA. It’s a human rights nightmare with no effective oversight.

6. Guy went in there and told them his wife was a “career home maker.” Mental health worker said, “You mean a career”passive parasite” and “salaried prostitute.” Said that was what he called “insight” and “radical reality therapy.” The guy walked out and never came back yet the fraudulent and sick employee only gained extra time to do recreational things throughout the week.

7. Thanks for your concerns and support to all involved.

8. The Veterans Healthcare Administration, which shrinks go to work so they can care or not care for whomever they please according to how they see politics at any given moment. That’s too bad our federal courts put up with a scam like that. Perhaps they should be the ones to be dragged off the bench and publicly whipped. A VA sot can’t help himself.

9. mcdonough is no longer secretary

   1. Water is wet, fire is hot, ice is cold. Brilliant observation.

10. leave the veterans care alone and tell Trump to get off is high horse. He is going to ruin this country.

    1. I think that Trump is very pleased with what he’s doing, even though he’s not hurting himself. Every since day one, when his hand “DID NOT” touch that Bible, he should not had been sworn in. That was a sign of deception. He needs to be “IMPEACHED!”

    2. It has been a theatre performance and wreck for decades. Literally a fake healthcare system so he can do nothing but hand out insurance cards to make it better. He won’t, an the phoney baloney bullshit will feed of stupid people for forever. You probably just need to lay off the booze until your brain gets reconnected…if you think simply seeing someone is healthcare you moron.

11. Those people in there with psychology degrees aren’t worth a fuck. They have a tendency to insult people with their bogus ass philosophy. That’s round about the time you meet them at Walmart, grab patches of hair, rip hair out of head. If bigger than you, just hit in head with bottle and haul ass. Show up years later and ask how the head is doing.

12. The Veterans Healthcare Administration has too many people with mental health problems themselves working there… with high percentages of people who simply use VHA as political and legal muscle to be selective with who they treat and don’t treat. Denial of care is common throughout the system. It goes far beyond just front line employees. The beaurocracy sets a culture of denial of care. Requests for care never even make it to them in many cases. Only rudimentary care and emergency care during life threatening emergency will be provided. You could die if you go in there thinking otherwise. To top it all off…they have the money. Hundreds of billions.

13. The Veterans Healthcare Administration hasn’t been treating a variety of medical conditions over decades. The partisan hackery and good old boy politics in this country are partially to blame. The rest is just pure unadulterated political system failure. The more people who leave, the better it will get by virtue of them having one less person to feed the deplorable wreck.

14. For the love of God force the courts to go to town on the Veterans Healthcare Administration before more people die!!!!!

15. They want to make you believe the case for privatization of VA is about money and lining the pockets of private entities. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s about giving veterans choice and ability to have their cases heard in a court of law if their rights are violated by some nut jobs. Currently, it’s very hard to sue the government and we can’t have that when millions of lives are in the hands of so many people… some of them who feel protected by unlimited legal resources and immunity…to behave however they please. That along with lack of choices is a bad arrangement. We need to be able to easily and successfully sue, and that’s not happening in the current arrangement, so I don’t see any better alternative to privatization. The courts are not performing their duties towards the citizens in our democracy.

16. For decades, federal government employees at the VA have discriminated against people who they perceive to have certain mental health problems… and not one peep out of anyone here on this website. Healthcare discrimination has been normalize for Christ sakes. Tens of thousands know that they are only partially welcome at VA under the condition that they not appear mentally unwell in certain ways. This is a massive human rights violation perpetuated by the federal government itself!!!

17. Advances in neuroscience and medicine will only make the VA more volatile as much of the peudo intellectual philosophy created by psychologists proves itself to be bullshit. Never go one on one with anyone who isn’t a medical doctor in there. They’re upset that their philosophy, social and otherwise, political, as well, is bullshit. They’ll take their own worthlessness out on you and God knows many of them are mentally ill themselves. They profit from your stupidity.

    1. .. Their training and doctors degree came in pretty handy.

       1. No, the ones with medical degrees are the good guys. A psychology degree is a degree in philosophy. That’s not really science… and many of them deviate from scientific principles. They feel their jobs are to categorize you because they don’t have the authority to diagnose at VA. So they will be the ones who determine whether to render care, and when they determine that you can’t really be helped, they will be the ones to not render that help.

18. Means really nothing. They arbitrarily deny care there unless it’s immediately life threatening thus they can’t justify it or get away with it and still maintain legitimacy and credibility. In fact, people go there thinking they’re entitled to healthcare and receiving healthcare only to find out that they are being constantly evaluated for qualification. This is especially true for mental health, as they feel no obligation to treat people with certain mental health problems that involve degraded capacity to mentalize, due to things that aren’t related to military service. That and they don’t have to do anything to treat certain physical conditions appropriately whether service connected or not. They can legally provide the least amount of healthcare as possible for a certain condition to save money and there’s nothing you can do about it.

    1. I don’t like him as the va secretary and completely disagree with what he is doing but unfortunately he is the secretary of va so it is a miss print

       1. Yeah you wrote that twice.

19. great work!

    will present a few ideas in re: disabled vets.

    347-382-4766.

    1. do you plan to edit this article since you have the wrong person listed as va secretary?

       1. He’s actually doing the VA a great service by not listening Doug Collins because his state has the absolute worst VA facilities in the nation. To put a man like that in charge is a slap in the face to veterans. He made no progress in VA care for veterans prior to his appointment. They would have to hand out insurance cards in Georgia and close down those places to effect change there.

       2. I don’t like him as the va secretary and completely disagree with what he is doing but unfortunately he is the secretary of va so it is a miss print

20. the va secretary is Doug collins!

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