As I sit here at my desk, wishing for a reprieve from my flu-like symptoms but willing to settle for a quick death, I find myself thinking about the never ending national healthcare debate.
First of all, let’s get one thing straight: the debate is about health coverage and health insurance not health care. If it were about health care we would be hearing arguments on quality of care, not who is paying for it or where to get coverage. So the argument doesn’t match the hype.
But that’s all right, because coverage is what people want; they can argue the worth of that coverage later.
I am one of the thousands of people who can’t get coverage from regular health insurers, because of pre-existing conditions related to military service, unless I want to send every penny I make to an insurer. I am supposed to be able to have my healthcare through the Veterans Administration, but as I have learned of late that’s not much of an option despite what the president and his minions spout.
I thought for context that we might just look at what that single-government-run and funded healthcare program looks like.
Now, I have had some services provided for me through the VA; I had shoulder surgery in 2003 and, from time to time, I need to get injections in my back to control the pain from an old injury, but that was done at the Durham VA before I came to the mountains. The care was great, but I found out it was only so because young doctors from Duke University were crossing the street (literally) to work in the VA Hospital.
Now that I am here, I have had to change my hospital and now am registered at Mountain Home VA Med Center in Mountain City, Tenn, but registration is all I’m going to get.
After weeks of calling the county VA rep, who never returned a single phone call, I took a chance a drove to the nearest VA facility. While at the VAMC in October, I went through the motions of registering with them, even though I have been a VA patient since 1996, but that’s government paperwork for you. I left and waited, and waited, and waited some more. Then last week, when I felt that nearly six months of waiting was enough for anyone to wait for an appointment, I called the VAMC to ask “What the hold up was?” I was told that the hold up was because they [the VA] do not have enough doctors to care for the veterans that need it. They were very nice about it and even told me they were sorry, but that I was out of luck and would not be assigned a primary care provider for the foreseeable future.
When I asked about being seen for complications with my service-connected issues, the response was to “come to Mountain City and sit and wait in the urgent care clinic.” I would “eventually get seen.”
That, my friends, is government-supervised healthcare. That, my friends, is how the federal government keeps their promise to care for the ones who have served to protect it. No doctors, no timely care and no consistency from facility to facility.
So my question to you is: “Why are we letting our officials continue to fight and filibuster over an issue that they can’t seem to fix for a small segment of the country (vets) when their goal is to provide this same slack and unacceptable service to the country as a whole?”
I don’t see the sense in the fight because if the government can’t even take care of us how will they care for everyone or force private entities to do so?
I think it is time to quit beating a dead horse and move on. If America wanted government run or managed health care they could have had it under Clinton. It’s time to move on to things that have hope of passing, if anything like that exists in national legislating.
As for me and my fellow vets, we will continue to go to the VAMCs around the country for what we can get, when we can get it, since it’s the only option for most of us.
As for you and your medical care, that my fellow citizens is on you, and it looks like it will stay that way.
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