It’s Time for Veterans to have a Choice in Medical Care

                                    Don’t you think they have earned it? 

There is more than one core incompetency with the Veterans Health Administration. I guess you can have more than one core when you have a multi-cored monstrosity called the Veterans Administration. Regardless, the end result is that thousands of men and women who served and sacrificed for our country are in need of medical care, and they are waiting. In fact they wait far longer for care than your standard Medicare patient. Now the waiting is taking a toll on lives.

I waited for 3 years to have my back injury addressed by the VA. It was an injury that I received on active duty in 2008. The system was so backlogged that even an active duty injury was left unintended for that long. But I’m lucky compared to many of my comrades. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs released a document, which was made public by CNN, about an investigation that was conducted in just two VA hospitals in Georgia and South Carolina. The investigation dealt with cancer patients in 2010 and 2011. 

Apparently nineteen patients died over that two year period due to a delay in receiving a consult for fundamental screenings like colonoscopies. It was a remarkable lack of basic diagnostic care that is available to practically anyone else that isn’t a veteran. The investigation of those two VA hospitals also found at least eighty other patients that have become severely ill with advanced stages of cancer because the disease wasn’t diagnosed or a consult was not given for diagnostic tests. There are wonderful doctors and medical professionals that are part of the VA but a lack of adequate systems and processes that exist in even the most subpar civilian hospitals have infected the healthcare infrastructure of the only option that veterans have.

It’s time that Veterans have the same rights as Medicaid patients. Its time veterans have a choice to see any doctor any where they choose. In many cases VA doctors are so far away from patient’s homes that they have to travel at their own expense and stay in hotels awaiting treatment. Instead they should have the right to see their local doctors.

 If Veterans could see private doctors they certainly would not be waiting 9 months just to see a specialist. And the great thing about choice is the Veteran could just take his business elsewhere if the wait were too long. These are medical benefits veterans have earned through fighting in wars for our country. Our Veterans own their benefits and should have the right to use them the same way Medicaid and Medicare patients can, at their choice of doctors and hospitals.