Principi proposed a $1,500 deductible for veterans

[SoCalDem]

You have to read the rest of this article.. What a crock.. When people sign up for the military, they are told that they will get "medical care" when they get out.. Talk about bait & switch..

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January 02, 2004
http://armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292260-2523198.php
VA chief views war through eyes of a parent

By Suzanne Gamboa
Associated Press


The faces of Anthony Principi’s sons creep into his mind each time he visits the wounded men and women who have returned from Iraq and come to heal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
As Veterans Affairs secretary the past three years, Principi has been consumed with the care of millions of men and women who served in the Armed Forces. As a parent, he has felt pride and angst as his Air Force officer sons, Anthony and Ryan, have joined other service members to fight the war in Iraq. “I see my sons in the place of that wounded soldier, the grieving parents, the loved ones,” Principi said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “I think of my wife sitting there and holding my son’s hands. It’s hard to describe in words. It certainly does add a new dimension to my work.”

...snip.....

“When I go up to Walter Reed, it especially hits me hard as I go from bed to bed. I’m pretty emotional, I kind of hide it,” he said. “What if that was one of my sons in that bed?”

...snip.....

Hearing that veterans faced long waits for doctors’ appointments, Principi sent Gordon Mansfield, a disabled veteran recently named VA deputy secretary, undercover to VA hospitals to check waiting times. Six of the eight hospitals Mansfield visited declined to treat him because they were too full. To reduce the waits, he proposed charging a $1,500 deductible for some veterans for health care and increasing or adding prescription drug or enrollment fees. Congress panned the idea and Principi dropped it. In lieu of that, he barred new higher-income veterans without injuries or illnesses connected to their military service from the VA health care system this year.

Principi’s smile fades when he’s asked about the criticism. “The president has always told me, ‘Tony, just do what’s right.’ So the (suspension) decision was a tough one, but I believe to this day it was the right one so we can focus on the disabled and the poorest of the poor,” Principi said.

...snip.....

Principi was to be in Waco, Texas, on Friday to discuss with veterans the VA’s proposal to close the veterans hospital there. He was to go next to Fort Hood to meet with family members of deployed soldiers from the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, which helped capture Saddam Hussein.

[izzie]

1. It used to say IF it was there but that is not what they thought.

I recall living near DC and officers wifes got better care then vets and their was a stink about it.But they could say help was not there for vets. My husband was a 20 year man and we always knew we may not be able to get care when he got out. One reason so many people stayed around bases when they left as it was more likely you could get care. We lived in a place that the two service hospital left and before they left they had picked up vets from all over those 3 states. It was a big problem for a long time.

[SoCalDem]

2. That's how they get around it.. Keep closing facilities

and the vets will either be too sick or too far away to keep up with treatment..

[revcarol]

3. I saw him on C-Span when he proposed this...I thought:

WHAT A SLUG. Another Bush appointee who talks the talk, and won't walk the walk.

So, then, for the administration, it was back to the drawing board. Had to find another way to decimate the veterans. Have you seen the LATEST?

My husband would have been ineligible this year, had he not died., because of the "change in regs," cutting off people to limit care.
We together, living on his income, made $7.00 over the limit.And for that they would have denied him $300 worth of medicine per month, medicine that kept him functional and alive.We were willing to wait 3 months for the first appointment and go 270 miles round trip, for that medicine.

[SoCalDem]

4. I have a friend who used to have phsyical therapy, and then they moved

that "unit" to San Diego.. He has a beat-up car and is caretaker for the kids while his wife works.. There is no way he could get to his appointments regularly, so he had to quit, and now he is in terrible shape.. :(

Pettis is only a half hour away, be he cannot get "permission" to go there :(