Veterans: Supporting The Troops?

Words from the therapist who taught us about toxic parents: If this is love, then I don't want it - could be slightly adapted for our poor veterans, who are suffering unbelievably at the hands of the thugs and crooks in Bush's administration. If this is "Support The Troops," then stick it up your keisters and give us what we need, you worms.

According to the Spring 2006 newsletter from Another Mother For Peace:

More than 260,000 veterans who applied to receive health care at the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2005 were turned away!

Since January 2003, the Bush Administration has barred access to VA care to veterans who do not receive monetary compensation for service-connected disabilities and whose incomes were above an arbitrary threshold. The VA estimated that from January 2003 to September 2005, eligibility requirements barred more than 500,000 veterans from services they are entitled to. In 2005, the income threshold that would bar an unmarried veteran from VA services was $26,902. To add insult to injury, the VA has started to charge an annual fee of $250 to new veterans who apply for care!

Excuse me? WTF is this about? $26K for a disabled person is rock-bottom survival money, to begin with. Such a person could barely survive in most cities in the U.S. (which is where accessible health care is located). They'd be eating stone soup and beans and rice to do it. If they're not getting free health care, they're in bad, bad shape - suffering. We don't think - and we'll bet you don't think either - that it's right to treat people like that whose only "mistake" in judgment, as conservatives might label it, was to serve their country. And charging them $250 to apply for care? That is bloody outrageous.

We do not support the illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq. But we'll be damned if these shoddy schmucks get to ride this thing out on the backs of the working men and women who volunteered to serve their country.

And now, the NYT tells us that 1 out of every 8 veterans is uninsured! What the hell does that mean? We don't care if they're insured or not, that's just a way for the insurance companies to get richer bleeding taxpayer dollars out of the treasury. We want them to have health care - the best health care, not the rags and tags and crumbs off the table. The same kind of healthcare that Mr. Colonoscopy got earlier this year when taxpayer-funded doctors were sticking probes up his bung. One out of eight! That's scandalous!

According to the article:

Researchers at Harvard Medical School projected that about 1.8 million veterans overall lack health coverage. That's an increase of 290,000 since 2000. The researchers said most uninsured veterans are in the middle class and are ineligible for VA care because of their incomes. Still others cannot afford their copayments, or lack VA facilities in their community.

''Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people -- too poor to afford private coverage but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care,'' said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, an associate professor and a physician at the Cambridge Health Alliance.

The study is based on an analysis of government surveys released between 1988 and 2005. Veterans do fare better than the overall population when it comes to obtaining health insurance. Still, the Harvard researchers said the rising number of uninsured vets points to the need for more funding for the VA. The best solution, they said, would be for universal health coverage in the United States.

For a scathing analysis of what the bushies' budget is doing to veterans' health care, drop by at VA Watchdog.

Meanwhile, Raw Story informs us that Li'l Boots plans to govern by fiat, since Congress is no longer his personal rubberstamp. When the hell did this great nation turn into a dictatorship?

It's enough to curdle the milk in your morning cuppa tea.

Stumble It!