Vets To Pay For Service Related Injuries!, Please help stop this from happening!

Thank you all!!!!


Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!
Dear Military Families United Member and Supporter,

Yesterday we sent out an action alert asking you send to an email to the President urging him to reconsider his plan to charge veterans for their treatment of service-related injuries. This morning we are pleased to announce that due to the overwhelming number of responses from you and the immense criticism the President received over this issue, he has abandoned this outrageous proposal.

Over the last 24 hours nearly 3,700 of you sent in emails and letters to the White House. You are the reason that our veterans’ health care needs will not be abandoned by the government. Your action made a difference for our nation's heroes. The tremendous response is a testament your profound respect for our America's veterans. We cannot thank you enough for helping us fight this potentially damaging policy.


Sincerely,


Military Families United Team

I saw that the pres. had backed off of the idea. It is definitely good news!

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Patch;

I am beginning to wonder who the hell your Pres. has for advisers.



Camac.

About as good as those bush had, maybe a little worse. He said last night on Lenno, the decisions are HIS!

Slàinte,    

Patch    

His advisers are leftist just like he is. This is what he and they believe. They just didn't think they'd get caught or that anyone would say anything against the "One" or his policies.

What you see is liberalism in America. It is different, I suspect, than in Canada. I am following the polls and changes are taking place. He does well in "popularity" polls, but "job performance and confidence" polls are dropping. You have to know the question asked to determine the reliability.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

No, it wasn't a good idea, and it's been pulled. What's kind of a drag is the level of rhetoric -- descriptions like "backed off," and "showed the white flag." The guy floated an idea with some possibilities but with a lot of -- really too many -- attendant problems, vox populi shouted, and he listened. Got that? he listened, which is more than you can say for the regime that just passed. There's going to be a lot of that kind of thing coming up -- ideas with lots of warts on them, that need a public sounding. If you don't like some measure or other, say so, but enough with the high dudgeon and Cassandra-esqe pronouncements. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate (= the sludge that fell out and is now sitting sullenly on the bottom).

The initial article indicated that he refused to back down when the military leaders protested. Who would understand the problem better than the would. I give Obama credit for not proceeding but it was pure politics (the will of the masses) not good sense that ruled the day.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Which initial article? I see only one in this thread -- the one from Fox that lshillinger posted the link to. We have indirect quotes from Roberts, a media handler for the American Legion, and Rehbein, an American Legion commander, neither one dispassionate or disinterested, that the President "turned a deaf ear" and "deflected" mention of the moral obligation of the Government to care for the vets, which most likely meant that the plan was not going to be chucked out right then and there on their demand, and they were pissed about it. But there is also the expressed intention to increase funding for veteran care, as well as concurrence that the plan was still under construction and the administration was not going to be pressured into commenting fully yet, when the issue was still in the discussion stage. The outcry was justified as soon as anyone heard about it -- as I said, I don't think this is a well thought out direction for vet coverage -- but I think a cynical description of this as pure politics is not realistic.

The plan is far more problematic because of the shaky and disingenuous quality of all our private sector for-profit economics right now. Yesterday the banks and high finance -- today and tomorrow the big crashing discoveries might very well include the damned inflated health insurance cartel. No, our vets should not be entrusted to that system -- especially its overpaid leadership -- until it's been reamed out, laid bare and reconstructed, like the banks. Our vets have had enough rugs pulled out from under them already -- some of them, ironically, by the same VA policies that are supposed to be such superior protection. Some of the energy of this protest might well go in that direction.

Oldraven made a point -- if part of the coverage for vets were to be moved into the private insurance sector, there would have to be legislation to go with it that would keep their premiums stable and reasonable, and also to make sure their families' needs were not lumped in with theirs under the same coverage limits. Don't you think, just possibly, that that would have come up as an important consideration and been implemented as part of the plan?

What part of this do you think shows ANY promise or possibility? When we signed up for the military, it was with the PROMISE that if we were disabled or drastically injured in sevice of our country, then that country would TAKE CARE OF US!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, this Twit thinks that he might shunt us off on the private insurance sector and have us pay for what we were promised, just so he can be seen as saving a buck, all the while pouring trillions down the piss hole of the corporate banking scene.
Well, it should never even have been CONSIDERED! That is the fast track to getting your butt handed to you on a platter. If he even want's to consider a 2nd term(Pipe dream) he better not piss off the vets, because we cross ALL political lines and we all back each other!

The article I referred to was actually in the print media a day prior to reading this thread. It appeared in two local papers and a regional one. (two noted for their conservative, and one for its liberal take on the news.)

My opinion re: that the decision that it was a political move was based on the fact that when he saw the extent of the out cry, he did a quick about face (in just a matter of days). I have seen it happen many times over the years.

You are right to be concerned about the entire system now. The system was not bad, just those running it! Unfortunately they still are.

If price controls are legislated for any thing (that is being discussed as we debate this and not for just insurance) the item controlled will immediately become short in supply for all. Nixon's price controls created the gasoline shortages and long lines/fights at the pumps. In a free market, profit driven society, when the profit is gone, so is the product. The only remedy to fully controlled prices and the resulting shortages goes beyond socialism to communism. I do not want either.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

The possibility he was trying to explore is an alternative source of coverage and a way of paying for it, because every sector is in need of alternatives now, including the VA, which is way underfunded and unable to handle the long term and permanent disabilities that are coming home every week. Documentation on that is enough to sink a battleship. I already said I didn't think hitting up the private insurance companies as a solution was a good idea, and I'm glad they called off the hunt in that direction. But please let's not pretend that threats of pressure and demands that the Fed make good on its promise to take care of you guys, as much and as long as you will ever need it, are going to accomplish anything. What the hell are we going to do if even that money to support the VA just isn't there in sufficient amounts? If it isn't even now? Hearing all I have already about these brain-damaged kids who need not only medical and psychiatric care, but intensive retraining for some kind of productive life when it's possible, I do not think the VA can make good on a promise like that, even if they were given 50 times the priority than they are now in this circus balancing act of a federal budget. Is is better that we all just sit on our thumbs demanding government care as the veteran's right? There needs to be some kind of realistic fallback alternative, or these kids' lives were thrown away like Kleenex. This plan was no good -- but getting mad about being deliberately "shunted off" onto the private sector and demanding VA care or nothing, may not stand you any good for long either.

That WAS the promise when I served. It worked for the reasons I will explain in a min.

My injuries were not such that I ever wanted or accepted any military pension or VA benefits. Now the idea would be entertained but I made my decision many years ago and stand by it today. I prefer not to receive anything from the federal govt. and only accept the minimum.

NOW, I am going where I have never gone before and it may not be well received.

Our military now has the best "battle field" medical care system in the world! Troops survive injuries that would have been impossible in VN. We are now saving a lot of young men and women who should not be saved, and for the most part would not want to be saved. Preserving life without quality is wrong!! It fills care facilities at 4 K a month plus and meds/supplies. A person with a debilitating head injury can live for decades. For those with quality of life, a state of the art prosthetic leg or arm can cost 100K and the life of the limb is short. THAT is what broke the system. You say, we can not play God? We did in the past and every country with socialized medicine does. The services were and are allocated to those who will get the most from them by the God Squad. The rest get pain meds and tranquilizers! That being a lethal combination in its own right. I would not want the job, but there are those who will take it and revel in it!

Oh, and their lives were thrown away like kleenex! That happens in war. Always has and always will. Our youth do the job so we will not have to. If we want that comfort, maybe we meed to give up something for it. Maybe we can ALL pay 60 to 80% federal tax.

Unfortunately, in these times there is no answer and once inflation grips us (as local govt's are now preparing for) most of the world will not be able to afford basic necessities. That will render this discussion a moot issue.

I am sorry to have probably stepped on some peoples toes.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

As to the first point you make here, you are, sadly, correct. Both sides of the equation have escalated -- the methods and conduct of war with exaggerated dependence on high explosives and high-caliber weaponry is capable of greater injury, and the medical methods are capable of previously impossible saves. (This is not new -- We learned much that we know about the brain because penicillin saved so many of the dirty head wounds of World War II who would normally have died of infections, and scientists from all the combattant countries pooled their knowledge of the resulting disabilities to create maps of brain function that were previously never dreamed of.) But when it comes to sustaining these permanently damaged, heroic medical and surgical saves for the next fifty or more years, we are completely unprepared. All the more reason to be very, very picky about what we will engage in, and what we will commit ourselves to expending, be it money or troops.

It is also true that the public will not hear anything about letting the horrifically wounded soldier die. It is evident in the emotionality of the arguments that carry such rhetoric as "him who shall have borne the battle" that that is unthinkable -- the greatest sacrifices shall be made for the ones who sacrificed the most. But when we can't ante up and put our money where our rhetoric is? There is no cure for this outside of prevention -- don't engage in actions that will leave so many ruined and no way to sustain their lives acceptably when they survive. Choose the conflict with extreme care. Do anything not to engage. Never initiate conflict.

Does that work? Those of us who think that invading Iraq and spending billions to create a generation of damaged vets, who could ultimately cost billions to support indefinitely after they get home, was "defending our country" can answer that one.

As to lives thrown away like Kleenex, well as you say, "that happens in war" -- no. I will not buy it. When I say "their lives were thrown away" in this context, I am speaking of the great deception they are handed. It is NOT true that their sacrifice will be recognized and rewarded in the most practical and concrete way, with support and care until they are on their feet again, or forever if they aren't, and nobody in charge of the system really thinks they will be. I don't say that that is a foregone assumption going into a war -- even if it is terribly bad planning and not reckoning even close to what the cost will be.

But if it is really true, then stop lying -- tell them on the way over there that simply disposible is what they really are, and tell them when they get back damaged expecting to be taken care of for their sacrifice that disposible is what they will continue to be.

One problem sorting all this out rationally is the psychological effect known as "justification of effort." If one expends effort or makes a sacrifice, even if the cause turns out to have been dirty dealing or sheer folly, the better course of action emotionally is to defend it as a righteous and defensible cause, a justified expenditure, because the alternative is appalling and traumatic: "I was thrown away like a used piece of Kleenex for no good reason." Unfortunately, keeping up the fiction that it WAS for a good, just reason, so that this traumatic knowledge need not be suffered on top of all the other losses sustained in the line of duty, has to be done below the level of logic or awareness, so that we really believe it to be true, or else the self-deception would not work -- and this willing denial of awareness of the real state of things only sets the stage for repetitions, ad infinitum.

I did know the rules going in but most branches did not. There would be no heroic saves.

I get your meaning re" kleenex. They are handed a deception today. Mine was that the individual is nothing to the military. All can be sacrificed to win. Today, the wounded are not being treated well at all.

It is human nature to save everyone. However if you see the extent of some of the injuries, there is a point when the decision must be made to allow the individual to die with dignity. The body can survive for a long time with little more than a brain stem and many are today. Life is gone and the soul has departed to wherever. No one can convince me that anyone would want to survive in that condition. Even in VN with evac, they would not have survived those injuries. A low number of deaths (touted by bush) may make us feel good but considering the real cost it should not.

I have advocated for a long time that we should not fight other countries wars. WW1 would probably never have reached our shores but WW2 would have. No war since has had any bearing on our way of life. I am willing to defend our immediate neighbors at their request but no further.

Many are beginning to understand that assistance will be limited. That is why enlistments are down and the troops are stretched so thin.

As to "justification of Effort", I knew VN was not justified at the time. However you could not just quit as bush did. I had no one with influence in my family at the time.

We are now going to have to make some really hard choices.

Slàinte,    

Patch