![All over the US VA Hospitals/Medical Centers are under investigation for incompetence, waste, negligence, malfeasance and misfeasance, brutality and being a cruel farce. Turns out the San Antonio VA Medical Center is under investigation for precisely the same [failure to treat patients in a timely manner] reasons I entered a private hospital in Kerrville, Texas in January after several weeks of non-treatment and non-diagnosis at the VA Odessa and Big Spring VA Medical facilities during November and December, 2013](https://sofarfromheavendotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/kc-va-med-ctr.jpg)
All over the US VA Hospitals/Medical Centers are under investigation for incompetence, waste, negligence, malfeasance and misfeasance, brutality and being a cruel farce. Turns out the San Antonio VA Medical Center is under investigation for precisely the same [failure to treat patients in a timely manner] reasons I entered a private hospital in Kerrville, Texas in January after several weeks of non-treatment and non-diagnosis at the VA Odessa and Big Spring VA Medical facilities during November and December, 2013
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
I’ve said before I don’t believe the US government owes veterans good health care for the remainder of our lives as an ethical matter. Merely a legal one.
We don’t particularly deserve it any more than Native Americans deserve cradle to grave health, dental and eye care because they happen to be descendants of aboriginals. Merely something required by law. Same as the VA. They’re no more deserving than veterans, Wall Street bankers, CEOs of Multi-National Corporations, Congressmen and US Senators, or people living down in the war zones of slums getting their asses shot off in driveby shootings and their kids getting HIV from dirty needles.
Fact is, the US used to have wars people could understand and they needed to be able to draft young men to fight in them. Forcing the Confederate States to come back into the Union and offer up their sons to fight in Cuba and Puerto Rico [Spanish American War], the various Indian Wars acquiring Arizona, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, Washington and Oregon, and WWI [the BIG Mystery], along with WWII and various Asian Police Action debacles required incentives and salesmanship.
Out of the need for incentives for young guys to be discommoded in foreign lands for the benefit of big business and old men who liked parades grew the VA hospitals. And when military conscription went away at the end of the Vietnam War and the US began using a force volunteers, the need for the huge infrastructure gradually aged along with draft era vets.
Today we’d probably be better off moving the entire Indian Health Care System [run by the US Public Health Service] into those VA facilities so they wouldn’t be getting any better care than Veterans. That would take up the slack for a while, until this whole health care issue in the US gets sorted out.
It ain’t that anyone deserves any better health care than anyone else, no matter how much money they make, don’t make, or what they’ve done with their lives. It’s whether whatever health care anyone gets is what it claimed to be out where these claims are made when people are deciding what they want to do about their health issues.
Today the VA appears to be a cruel farce. I’m glad I’m eligible to make use of it, but a nice disclaimer on the front above the door might be appropriate:
ABANDON HOPE ALL WHO ENTER HERE
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 
And yet, they still line up for the privilege of dying for those old men. Go figure.
The people I know who’ve lined up have run out of employment opportunities. They line up to get a job and a paycheck.
elroyjones: If they don’t like it they ought to go to China where there are plenty of jobs and paychecks. The fact the only jobs for people at the bottom of the social strata involve sniping strangers off a ridge a mile away or dropping a drone into a market populated by terrorist women and kids, or flipping handburgers or selling marijuana represents a positive simplifying of the food chain. All roads lead to China. Cosmetic surgeons today have amazing abilities making Asian eyes out of Caucasian eyes, and Chinese lessons online can bring a person onto the waiting list for immigration visas to Sinkiang working in the firecracker industry. Plenty of jobs out there, even for people educated in the US, for people willing to go where the jobs are. Graciaas, J
I get what you’re saying Jack, but sometimes there is no cash to get to the place where the work is, no vehicle or no bus money. That’s why poor people all over the world fight wars and rich people stay home and profit.
Hi elroyjones. Probably one of the reasons, anyway. Another reason is that poor people have a lot of anger in life and frustration, making them want to kill someone for the hell of it, or to get back at the Universe. Any good reason to off strangers is a good enough reason. Gracias, J
angrymanspeaks: Nice seeing you here. It ain’t flipping hamburgers, pay and benefits are good, career possibilities for most, no heavy lifting, and relatively safe jobs as a general rule. Lots of potential for being called a hero without having to do anything to earn it, no need to demonstrate physical or moral courage, and plenty of after-market potential for jobs with private security [mercenary] contracts. Maybe even a chance to kill someone from a great distance so’s there’s no danger to one’s self. Gracias, J
Very nicely put. Effectively thought through, instead of the usual dribble people toss out about health care depending on what partisan side of the razor-wire fence they come from.
Good health and continuing care are not specifically addressed in the Bill of Rights, so the Health Care mandate is not like “every American has the right to own military-style rifles with magazines as long as their arms and Teflon coated bullets, but we’ll weed out the crazies who would be dangerous possessing them”.
It seems like health care is considered by some to be a right you have to earn somehow or other to begin with. Instead of looking for a reason to deny someone the access to insurance and treatment, they start by looking for reasons to offer it to them.
And you know … there are times I truly believe Vets deserve a bit of an advantage when it comes to some of their health care: all too often it was their service that was a proximate if not direct cause of their health problems.
High cholesterol? Well, you old jarhead, lay off the Cajun sausage.
War related injuries or illnesses? They get the best care available. Period.
How many of your brothers never got treated until after the Agent Orange finished doing its damage?
I’ve had some thoughts on it all too.
http://nocturnaladmissions.net/2014/04/26/obaromneycare-an-110312-facebook-post-of-mine/
But you put another angle in their for me to think about.
Thanks Jules.
the Prodigal Orphan: Thanks for coming by. Yeah, I reckons a lot of people in the military had encounters with things that gave them trouble later in life. Not to say they wouldn’t have found something else equally unhealthy if they were doing something else. I spent a month in the hospital in Fort Jackson, SC, October, Nobember 1961 with a case of double pneamonia I mightn’t have gotten if I hadn’t been out running in formations in a tee-shirt frosty mornings. But I don’t hold it against them. They figured I’d fare better killing young Rooskies if I could run far and fast when the shooting started, I figures. Seems to me the main thing in all this is to keep the word ‘is’ somewhere close at hand when we find ourselves getting animated about various ‘should’ concepts. Is has a way of bring it all back home without doing any permanent damage. Gracias, J
The last line made me laugh. You’re clever!
Thankee elroyjones. J
Reblogged this on So Far From Heaven and commented:
When I wrote this I was probably still carrying some bitterness about what happened to me when I tried to get diagnosed through the VA in Odessa/Big Spring and instead became one of the types of experiences that got a lot of terrible publicity for the Veterans Administration.
But the horror stories are still widespread, though no longer so pervasive. Living here and being over at the hospitals so frequently, I still listen to more of it than is right and proper for those legally mandated to provide health care for veterans.
So by golly, I’m reblogging this one.