Veterans Affairs, a Trump Signature Issue, Is Facing Turmoil Again

In the active Military we have a single payer system which works when you’re in the military and live near a military hospital. When one leaves the military you live wherever you want and then expect the same level of care and treatment you had while you were in the military because you are a “Veteran”. Our society and system doesn’t work like that. Private hospitals will charge whatever they like, and their charges are exorbitant, and the former military person has to prove any treatment is “service connected” , (the illness or injury is directly related to their time in service). We solve the VA when we all go single payer. Any other “overhaul” is just another layer of band-aids over a arterial wound.

Gradually Privatizing VA medical care must be accomplished.

Of course, paying for more and more vets to "seek care outside the department's traditional medical centers" is a backdoor way for the GOP/Conservative machine to eventually get the gov't out of healthcare all together. It's a similar tactic to encouraging Medicare recipients to leave traditional Medicare and join Medicare Advantage programs, which are run by private insurers. The long term goal with each would be not only to separate the gov't from medical care, but also over time lessen the amount the gov't contributes. By time the vets or seniors wake up to the fact that the gov't is paying less and less and less while the patients are paying more and more and more it will be too late.

First and foremost, I am not really sure why the person (s) that command is to war are the same that are very people over our medical when we come back. When you cause a Trainwreck you should not be the person investigating said Trainwreck. This is what POTUS or at least the office of, does. The Department of Defense, and others involved. This is why it is so hard for veterans to get the benefits that they deserve. The government will admit that there were chemicals that caused multiple issues that so many of us have that is called Desert Storm Syndrome, that is related to the open burn pits, but DSS, is not a disability or anything that they should be responsible for. The crazy migraines, the PTSD, the multiple other issues that comes from just being in the situations. Yet the same people make the rules as to whom should get the help. What hoops you need to jump through, how many, how often you should jump through them. This is a bunch of foolish nonsense that even Ray Charles can see ignorance. (Ray Charles is blind and dead)! Maybe we should the veterans run the show from top to bottom. This might make some things run better. Put the lower enlisted in the highest positions, they seem to know the most.

Is the Deputy Secretary Mr Wilkie? He’s identified in the text and caption as just Secretary so got a bit confused

Everything this administration touches withers and dies.

VA stands for Very Antiquated: That is how they handle data, records, payments and claims. It's an absolute mess. I deliver surgical services for them. Records are disorganized. Referrals confusing and payment exceedingly slow. The VA makes the postal service look like Amazon. Quite a feat.

Yet more reasons to scrap the military industrial complex. This year’s medical bill along with the DOD’s $700 billion plus puts the tab just under a trillion. Thanks to all our millions and millions and millions of veterans but, did we really need them all in the first place?

Interesting that the Dept of Veterans Affairs has the 2nd largest budget. Wars are so expensive for so many an so profitable for so few.

This mess is what you get when you keep electing people who do not believe in government to run programs they hate but haven't figured out how to kill yet...just saying. There is one thing that the VA could do that would have a helpful impact on millions of veterans. Tear down the silly wall that keeps VA physicians from even discussing medical cannabis with their patients. The VA claims it's up to Congress to pass enabling legislation that would take cannabis off DEA Schedule One. Meanwhile veterans suffer. And there are things cannabis has been found useful for that are common among vets. TBI, PTSD and anxiety disorders often respond to it. But helping them get qualified for their state programs is the first step to ending the senseless policy that is a drug war relic that needs to go. Meanwhile there are research opportunities that are being overlooked. Some afflictions have little that can help via conventional medicine, so promising anecdotal results should be followed up on to improve care for those who suffer, the whole point of the VA. Time to quit pointing fingers and start doing something positive. It is, after all, an election year and those who are looking to earn a vote should depend on voters judging them on what they did, not what they said.

My Aunt was a marine in Korea during the Korean War. She has had two recent heart attacks in November and in January. She lives in Myrtle Beach, SC. Of course, the V.A. told her to go to the Grand Strand Hospital ER, where she ended up being admitted for a couple of days. She has been bombarded with bills and bill collectors calling her. She told me she even had an attorney call her. She is collecting all the bills. She needs me to come over and drive her down to Charlestown to take all the bills. It is ridiculous!

"Ambitious changes" being a euphemism for doing away with.

I work for VA. To many chiefs and not enough Indians. (Don't even tell me that's racist or whatever...I am calling like it is in a colloquial manner.) These people have meetings about when to have their next meeting. The medical staff actually really want to tend to the Veterans' healthcare, but they always have to go to one of these mandatory (and useless) meetings.

The people running the government today don't have a clue.Trumps people are don't use facts and knowledge thru experience ,but pre-conceived notions .When you know the answer before the question you will eventually find disaster.

Good example of the complete incompetence of the Trump administration hiring of "only the best people." If a CEO ran a business like that he would be fired immediately. "Department officials admitted to lawmakers that they had no clue how much the outside care was costing or how many were seeking it."

Gresham’s law, a concept in economics, says that bad money drives out good. It applies equally to Trump appointees. Trump’s Cabinet secretaries tend to be grifters, sycophants and fools. Their presence makes it unattractive for a person of character and talent to join them in the Trump Swamp. So what we have is a race to the bottom, with each department run by a succession of people who would never have been considered for high office in any previous administration, Republican or Democratic. Trump can spout off about veterans all he wants, but he won’t be able to deliver on his promises, because the rot in this administration is pervasive and self-perpetuating.

Who can believe Trump cares anything for those in the military, after his insane insults to the top brass at the Pentagon, when he told them "you are babies and losers" because they questioned his idea of using the US military as mercenaries, as a profit making venture. Eyewitness testimony to this farce is in the new book "A very stable genius,"

Robert Wilkie, One more Trump incompetent sycophant. No matter what or who Trump says he cares about it's all a lie.