Submitted by ctmiller on October 26, 2007 - 1:50pm.
I read the article in Sunday's 10/21/07 edition about VA and Veteran Health Care. What follows is my comments on this Country's government and president. I have also in the past written the News and Observer about Veteran Health Care with out receiving any response to my messages. Here is the way it goes... the VA does not volunteer any information to any one who does not know to ask and the VA web site is not user friendly. The VA more often denies the problem of the Veteran and certainly does not advertize in the hope veterans will come forward to submit a claim or ask for health care. You have to submit a claim before you can request health care. First the VA denied that my condition was real until 1980. This left me with no way to file a claim when I was discharged. The first 17 years were tough but I was able to stay employed. The next 20 years were a wasteland spent trying to stay alive without employment, health care, family or friends. When my claim was finally granted it was reduced so the VA would not have to pay as much nor would they have to offer health care above a certain level. When they no longer could deny the evidence and the Doctors (not under their control) evaluations... they said I had grown worse and therefore increased my compensation and increased my health care coverage but not back to the Original Date of my Claim. They only went back to the date where they decided I was worse then before. I was in fact the same all through the years, that being 100% but they still refuse to admit this as that level would cost them more in Health Care Benefits. The years I have been in contention with the VA have been the worse in my life... they forced me to prove things and events that were already know facts and more they forced me to relive the events that caused my problem. Has Congress helped the Veteran? NO. They have hired more people (not doctors or nurses) that leave less in the budget for Veterans Health Care Benefits and Compensation for Service Connected Disability. People who answer the phone are often rude and unfriendly and unhelpful as far as questions. I still can not get in touch with my primary care doctor. I can not ask a nurse questions unless I remember to do so during an appointment. I feel many of my needs are not being cared for while other care not needed is forced on me. I do not feel my doctors listen to me or care what I have to say.
Posted on behalf of Ellison Hunt
I read the article in Sunday's 10/21/07 edition about VA and Veteran Health Care.
What follows is my comments on this Country's government and president. I have also in the past written the News and Observer about Veteran Health Care with out receiving any response to my messages.
Here is the way it goes... the VA does not volunteer any information to any one who does not know to ask and the VA web site is not user friendly. The VA more often denies the problem of the Veteran and certainly does not advertize in the hope veterans will come forward to submit a claim or ask for health care. You have to submit a claim before you can request health care.
First the VA denied that my condition was real until 1980. This left me with no way to file a claim when I was discharged. The first 17 years were tough but I was able to stay employed. The next 20 years were a wasteland spent trying to stay alive without employment, health care, family or friends. When my claim was finally granted it was reduced so the VA would not have to pay as much nor would they have to offer health care above a certain level. When they no longer could deny the evidence and the Doctors (not under their control) evaluations... they said I had grown worse and therefore increased my compensation and increased my health care coverage but not back to the Original Date of my Claim. They only went back to the date where they decided I was worse then before. I was in fact the same all through the years, that being 100% but they still refuse to admit this as that level would cost them more in Health Care Benefits.
The years I have been in contention with the VA have been the worse in my life... they forced me to prove things and events that were already know facts and more they forced me to relive the events that caused my problem.
Has Congress helped the Veteran? NO. They have hired more people (not doctors or nurses) that leave less in the budget for Veterans Health Care Benefits and Compensation for Service Connected Disability.
People who answer the phone are often rude and unfriendly and unhelpful as far as questions. I still can not get in touch with my primary care doctor. I can not ask a nurse questions unless I remember to do so during an appointment.
I feel many of my needs are not being cared for while other care not needed is forced on me. I do not feel my doctors listen to me or care what I have to say.