And the quality of health care will be equal for all. And you need not be a veteran to enjoy such quality!

VA STORY   ++ click here ++
I am telling this lengthy story because it needs to be told. The director of the Asheville North Carolina Veterans Administration Medical Center has made it a practice to have members of his staff systematically turn away any veteran to whom they figure they can deny treatment. This practice is ongoing and has been for the furtherance of the director's personal career, under the guise of economizing. Veterans' co-payments are turned back into the regional office instead of going for patient care. This information was provided to me by a former Congressional aide. Congress recently granted this facility $26 million for its expansion but patient care is low on the director's list of priorities. Many of these veterans have no private health insurance and have nowhere else to go. A number have died because they could not get care in time. They are not impoverished or underprivileged. They are shocked to find that they cannot receive at the Asheville facility care which would be routinely available at any other VA facility. Apparently because of the whimsical personal policy of the director, James Christian, they are simply being denied illegally the care to which they are entitled.

He asked, "Where am I supposed to go for treatment?" She told him he would have to go "out into the community." He explained that he had no private insurance, a very modest income, and was not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid. He told her that the family had just relocated and he was following his doctors' orders to continue getting follow-up care at the nearest VA once we got settled, and also to report in, should he experience any symptoms. He asked her where he was supposed to get health coverage if he'd already had cancer. The clerk wouldn't budge. When asked why he could be treated at any other VA medical facility in the country but this one, she only replied, "Ask your Congress."

How could such a thing happen, you ask. That's what I am still asking! Why was he not referred to eligibility? Why was he not asked for proof of income? Our income for a family of four was under the threshold for category I non-service connected veterans. And why was he not triaged and referred to ENT? At that time, were all non-service connected veterans being turned away because of lack of funds? Or only cancer patients because they are so expensive to treat? Or only patients without supplemental insurance or Medicare which could be gleaned and turned back in to make it appear that the facility was saving money? Why has the hospice ward been shut down and why have the oncology and cardiology departments both been intermittently slated to be closed? Why are there no longer any clinics on Fridays? Why are many of the cancer patients who do manage to get seen often asked to drive to far away places like Ashland, KY for chemotherapy treatments, when there is a fine oncologist on staff at the Asheville facility who can readily administer chemotherapy treatments right there in Asheville?

Let's see another story--

Wash. Post: "It is not just Walter Reed"   ++ click here ++
March 4, 2007
Oliva is but one quaking voice in a vast outpouring of accounts filled with emotion and anger about the mistreatment of wounded outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Stories of neglect and substandard care have flooded in from soldiers, their family members, veterans, doctors and nurses working inside the system. They describe depressing living conditions for outpatients at other military bases around the country, from Fort Lewis in Washington state to Fort Dix in New Jersey. They tell stories -- their own versions, not verified -- of callous responses to combat stress and a system ill equipped to handle another generation of psychologically scarred vets.

And read this:

     Sandy Karen was horrified when her 21-year-old son was discharged from the Naval Medical Center in San Diego a few months ago and told to report to the outpatient barracks, only to find the room swarming with fruit flies, trash overflowing and a syringe on the table. "The staff sergeant says, 'Here are your linens' to my son, who can't even stand up," said Karen, of Brookeville, Md. "This kid has an open wound, and I'm going to put him in a room with fruit flies?" She took her son to a hotel instead.

And this:

     Capt. Leslie Haines was sent to Fort Knox in Kentucky for treatment in 2004 after being flown out of Iraq. "The living conditions were the worst I'd ever seen for soldiers," he said. "Paint peeling, mold, windows that didn't work. I went to the hospital chaplain to get them to issue blankets and linens. There were no nurses. You had wounded and injured leading the troops."

     ....From Fort Campbell in Kentucky: "There were yellow signs on the door stating our barracks had asbestos."

And this:

     At the sprawling James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., Spec. Roberto Reyes Jr. lies nearly immobile and unable to talk. Once a strapping member of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, Reyes got too close to an improvised explosive device in Iraq and was sent to Walter Reed, where doctors did all they could before shipping him to the VA for the remainder of his life. A cloudy bag of urine hangs from his wheelchair. His mother and his aunt are constant bedside companions; Reyes, 25, likes for them to get two inches from his face, so he can pull on their noses with the few fingers he can still control.

     Maria Mendez, his aunt, complained about the hospital staff. "They fight over who's going to have to give him a bath -- in front of him!" she said. Reyes suffered third-degree burns on his leg when a nurse left him in a shower unattended. He was unable to move himself away from the scalding water. His aunt found out only later, when she saw the burns.

( and expect frequent Congressional investigations for botched National Health Care treatments; every investigation is on the Taxpayer's dime! )

Free health care! Sweet!

The recruiter says the VA health benefits beat Medicare and Medicaid any day. He's right! Beaten to a pulp...

average "you're gonna git what you pay fer" joe

( if Big Guv'mint can't even run a VA hospital to civilian health care standards, how can Amerikans believe Big Guv'mint can provide top-notch National Health Care?
This is the biggest joke ever! A money-making racket to line the pockets of a
few health industry corporations that monopolize against a healthy environment of free market competition by smaller health care corporations! )

( the Congress peoples will have a different health care plan that Big Guv'mint already provides them with, not subscribing to the National Health Care Program for the "little people"; you see, some Amerikans are MORE equal than others! )