[Ninong]

We Have A Problem: Too Many Veterans Seeking Health Care

VA hospital expenses are rising because so many of our veterans are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and seeking health care. It's bad enough they think they should be entitled to the same sort of education benefits we provided veterans after World War II but now many of them are seeking compensation for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

What to do, what to do?

On the education benefits front, those sneaky Democrats, knowing it's an election year, are proposing a new GI bill that would increase education benefits to veterans. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with her San Francisco values, will easily get the bill passed in the House, so we must rely on Sen. John McCain to rally support from his fellow screw-the-troops colleagues in the Senate to filibuster the bill there. It's getting close because Sen. Jim Webb has persuaded several turncoat Republicans to join him and the Democrats in supporting the troops. He now has 57 votes. He needs only three more votes to stop our patriotic filibuster against granting additional benefits to our returning veterans.

As President Bush and Senator McCain pointed out, if we give the troops too much help in paying their college tuition, then they might not stay in the service. They might decide that their chances for a better future might be enhanced by attending college. It's bad enough that we have to pay them outrageous enlistment bonuses just to get them to enlist, so that we don't have to draft our own children (who have other priorities), and pay them enormous reenlistment bonuses to get them to reenlist, but now the Democrats want to make it so attractive to them that they might want to leave the service and turn down our reenlistment bonus offer in order to take us up on the free college offer. We were never really serious about the free college stuff, that was just a slogan. What part of that don't the Democrats understand?

And, on top of having to deal with the Democrats' sneaky bid to increase college tuition benefits for returning veterans (which they insist on calling 'heroes'), we have to deal with the biased liberal media publishing embarrassing photos of barracks where we are housing these returning troops. What did they expect, Andover?

However, we can still save a few bucks if we can just convince the doctors that there is no such thing as PTSD. From now on, they should rule out PTSD and make a diagnosis of "Adjustment Disorder" instead. That will save us big bucks.

On March 20, 2008 a VA hospital's PTSD program coordinator sent an e-mail to a number of VA employees, including psychologists, social workers, and a psychiatrist, stating that due to an increased number of "compensation seeking veterans," the staff should "refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out" and they should "R/O [rule out] PTSD" and consider a diagnosis of "Adjustment Disorder" instead. The e-mail is available at www.citizensforethics.org.

Since this is just a suggestion, your compliance will not be carefully monitored and how well you accept this suggestion will have no effect whatsoever on your next annual performance evaluation.

P.S. -- Independent outside studies estimate that approximately 300,000 of the 1.6 million troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan require treatment for PTSD or depression.

[Ninong]

A SOLDIER'S TRAGIC TALE
A victim of the war within

Roughly one in five U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan reports symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, but only slightly more than half have sought treatment, according to a recently published Rand Corp. study. Of those who did seek care, only about half received minimally adequate treatment, the study found.

Here.

[Ninong]

Gates acknowledges mistakes in treatment of troops

FORT BLISS, Texas (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday said the military had made mistakes in treating returning combat troops including in their physical and mental health care and by providing some sub-standard housing.

In a visit to Fort Bliss, Texas, Gates announced a change in government procedures to encourage troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) without fear of losing their security clearances and harming their careers.

The announcement came just a day after closing arguments in a San Francisco federal court case in which veterans allege the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is unable to deal with the growing number of PTSD cases emerging from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

You can read the rest here.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Ninong

On the education benefits front, those sneaky Democrats, knowing it's an election year, are proposing a new GI Bill that would increase education benefits to veterans. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with her San Francisco values, will easily get the bill passed in the House, so we must rely on Sen. John McCain to rally support from his fellow screw-the-troops colleagues in the Senate to filibuster the bill there. It's getting close because Sen. Jim Webb has persuaded several turncoat Republicans to join him and the Democrats in supporting the troops. He now has 57 votes. He needs only three more votes to stop our patriotic filibuster against granting additional benefits to our returning veterans.

As President Bush and Senator McCain pointed out, if we give the troops too much help in paying their college tuition, then they might not stay in the service. They might decide that their chances for a better future might be enhanced by attending college.

21st Century G.I. Bill Passed Senate 75-22

It wasn't even close. Bush and McCain lost their battle to defeat the new G.I. Bill sponsored by Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), both decorated Vietnam war veterans. McCain, probably sensing a humiliating defeat, kept his ass in California and didn't even bother to show up to vote. Ninety-seven senators voted but McCain couldn't be bothered. He did get extremely upset upon hearing that Sen. Obama had attacked his opposition to this bill as misguided on the floor of the Senate. McCain said that Obama had no right to criticize him on any veterans matters because Obama chose not to join the military.

What is significant about this victory is that 25 Republican senators voted FOR this bill in defiance of orders from the White House Mitch McConnell and John McCain. There are 23 Republican senators up for reelection this year and some of them are obviously feeling the heat from veterans groups and veterans' families back home.

NYT Editorial:

President Bush opposes a new G.I. Bill of Rights. He worries that if the traditional path to college for service members since World War II is improved and expanded for the post-9/11 generation, too many people will take it.

He is wrong, but at least he is consistent. Having saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war, having squandered soldiers’ lives and failed them in so many ways, the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage re-enlistment, further weakening the military he has done so much to break.

So lavish with other people’s sacrifices, so reckless in pouring the national treasure into the sandy pit of Iraq, Mr. Bush remains as cheap as ever when it comes to helping people at home....

Mr. Bush — and, to his great discredit, Senator John McCain — have argued against a better G.I. Bill, for the worst reasons. They would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put.