Walter Reed is NOT a Veterans Administration Medical Facility. (2 Diff Groups)

[Ioo]

This is for education reasons, this is not a defense of the scandal.

I see a lot of people who are making a huge mistake interchanging the Walter Reed issue and the Veterans Administration. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME…

Walter Reed is part of the DOD Medical System, it is run by the DOD via the Department of the Army. It falls under the DOD budget, the one that is so large that it engulfs every nation on the planets own defense budget.

The Veterans Administration is a cabinet level agency that has many parts, the medical wing of the VA is called the VHA (Veterans Healthcare Administration) and has NOTHING to do with the DOD, or the DOD budget.

I am a disabled vet in the VHA system, and to be honest I (ME) have had great healthcare under the VA system (Been covered by the system for 11 years). I know there are issues, but please people, they are not the same….

You do all veterans a disservice by lumping them together. Once a vet, no matter HOW is discharged from the service, they can get NO CARE FROM the DOD, they must go to the VA. The VA is a long term system for vets, they do not treat people as they come off the battle field.

[salin]

1. Important distinction - and thanks.

Though I think it was my thread that got your attention - and that wasn't related to Walter Reed, but instead to the current WaPo article per complaints pouring in from around the country (though the authors are careful to specify that the stories are anecdotal and not verified) about VA facilities. As I read the article I just had that old news recall sense that made me recall a budget battle and the Admin pressure to prevent the dems in congress from increasing the VA budget.

I appologize if my thread stated otherwise, and I will be careful to make that distinction in the future. That does not allay my concern and sense that the current media has a very short memory - and that old news often gets forgotten and dropped - even when salient - in current news cycles.

[Ioo]

3. No Worries - I just do not want to have the scandle loose focus.

Walter Reed is covered under a budget so large that the troops should want for nothing!!!!

The VA on the other hand, is nothing more than a line item on the non-mandatory spending budget (that in itself is tragic)

[salin]

5. You raise a HUGE point per DOD budget and thus

how much there is to spend. And that the problems were known - and ignored - and $ spent elsewhere is a huge story.

Per the VA - my digging for old news made me run across items from an Illinois Congressman - and from a medical site that point to the bushco not only underfunding the VA but doing some very funny accounting to try to avoid footing the full and needed costs of the VA. It is all disgraceful. :-(

[Skidmore]

2. While there is a distinction, the way veterans have and are

being treated in both is abominable and needs to be addressed.

[Ioo]

4. You are Right, but do not muddy the waters, don't give the right an out

Because if we screw up the facts on this, we look as if we do not know what we are talking about.

For the record, I have been in the VA system for 11 years, and I have had some great care all in all. You have to make sure you are on top of it, because if you do not rasie your hand they will not call on you.

[Monkeyman]

6. Yes Walter Reed is DOD that makes it worse they have a budget

The Reason I want and it seem that Congress wants is to look at both Military Hospitals and VA Hospitals one big reason for that its Veterans and returning wounded in both. VA is broken in some places as bad as Reed. The 151,000 returning troops denied VA health care is why Congress want both in the hearings. Two Troops that have gotten out that where in Reed are now in the VA. No one is doing a disservice they are trying to make it better for vets like you and me. By the way the number of vets denied from the VA last year 600,000

[Ioo]

7. Oh I am not saying they are perfect - I am saying it is 2 issues...

Do not muddy the water here, it is dirty as it is...

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. kickin

[fed-up]

9. kick/rec n/t

[EFerrari]

10. Am I wrong, Ioo, that a big problem is in processing people from

one system into the other?

Thanks for the clarification. :hi:

[Solly Mack]

11. Yes, they are different. My worry is the transition between

DoD system and the VA system - constant wars increase the number of troops needing medical care for both systems...the more that are maimed, the more that will discharge, the more that enter the VA system earlier than normally expected.

The services must be there to meet the needs in both systems.



Future Medical Spending by the
Department of Veterans Affairs
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=7811&sequence=0

Under current policy and if trends in enrollment and use continue, the cost of meeting the demand for VA’s medical services may grow 3.6 percent annually in real terms, for a total of 88 percent real growth from 2007 through 2025, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects.


That growth is faster than CBO’s assumptions in its baseline and VA’s own projections but slower than the recent growth of appropriations for this discretionary program.


Those projections do not incorporate some costs for recent combat veterans.


The cost of meeting the demand for VA’s medical care could grow faster if more eligible veterans choose to enroll.


Projections are uncertain and depend on both policies regarding access to care and assumptions about cost growth, enrollment, use of VA’s services, and other factors.