Obamacare solves the VA problem: if you can't or won't treat them, drug them!
VA Docs May Recommend Rx Marijuana
http://Military.com Week of November 23, 2015
Legislation passed November 10 by the U.S. Senate includes a provision that would allow Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) doctors to recommend medical marijuana to patients in states where it is legal. Some veterans groups have pressed Congress for years to allow the drug for patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The so-called Veterans Equal Access Amendment would do so. The prevision does not change current laws preventing the possession or dispensing of marijuana on VA property, but simply allows veterans to discuss all options that are legally available in their state with their VA doctor. The provision was inserted into the Military and Veterans Construction bill, which the Senate passed unanimously.
http://Military.com Week of November 23, 2015
Legislation passed November 10 by the U.S. Senate includes a provision that would allow Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) doctors to recommend medical marijuana to patients in states where it is legal. Some veterans groups have pressed Congress for years to allow the drug for patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The so-called Veterans Equal Access Amendment would do so. The prevision does not change current laws preventing the possession or dispensing of marijuana on VA property, but simply allows veterans to discuss all options that are legally available in their state with their VA doctor. The provision was inserted into the Military and Veterans Construction bill, which the Senate passed unanimously.
Everybody in America who wants to smoke weed is already smoking it.
More troubling to me is the rumblings that they are going to conjure up a vaccine schedule, write it into the text of the law (read that again), and yank veterans' benefits if they don't fully comply. Let's see if that hits Fox News anytime soon.
And, the operative word there is that they MAY recommend weed. I doubt they will. This is all about maximizing yield from the livestock as they're on their way to the promised land, and nothing more. THAT'S why they
"can't or won't treat them." They don't want to. If they can get away with not treating them, they won't treat them.
As for the vaccine schedule you can't get it when they won't let you in the program and for retirees it's pretty evident we are on the outside probably because we have CHAMPUS Tricare comvbined with Medicare Part B and possibly D. That was never made clear. It costs $100 or a month as a mandatory deduction from Social Security and is useless outside the country. Inside the country it's next door to useless I get one flu shot if I spend $200 in travel expenses so I don't bother unless it's convenient. So far that's been twice. The deductible and co-pay so far has been better spent getting medications etc. in Mexico where medicine is around 40% of US 'affordable' costs. viva Mexico. I'd rather help out their economy.
End of story from you said and I said it don't treat them Drug them like all elderly and retirees they aren't useful anymore and mother nature isn't responding fast enough.
I wonder what their medical benefits are like ....
Now, I and countless many other vets live in constant, unending pain. I have several compressed spinal nerves that are so surrounded by scar tissue from surgery, the surgeons say there's nothing they can do. There was a huge amount of damage down there when I fell from that missile launcher that ended my military career.
To top that door prize off, I also have MS, which has it's own little "issues". This is one of the diseases that proponents most strongly claim is helped by Pot. I don't know since I've not tried it in 40+ years.
Since my injury June 5th, 1985, I've lived in constant pain. I've not known what a pain free life would be like since that day. I take 8 to 12 very strong prescription pain killers a day and soon will be forced onto a morphine drip since oral pain killers are becoming ineffective. For the past year I've effectively been housebound since I've been taking so much pain meds I will not risk driving except those rare times when I'm not suffering to much and can go without the meds for a few hours.
I don't know if weed would help manage my pain or not. I know I couldn't smoke it - I really can't stand smoking anything. But I'm informed that there are options today. If taking a dose of THC a day would allow me to terminate the other pain meds and not need the drip inserted in my spine, I'd be all for it.
If you've never experienced any long term nerve pain before, you really can't imagine what it's like and I can appreciate your reticence to accept these changes and giving who is promoting it, we all know if he's for it, "it's" only going to hurt us in the end.
This is just my confused point of view. Agree or disagree, it's all good.
I'm no doc, but have dealt with plenty of pain through athletic stuff and a few cancer incidences. The prescription meds are often opiates and, as you might guess by how, that's a serious proposition. I was just talking today with a buddy about the time I blew a knee out and got off vicodin cold turkey. Man...that was hell.
I hope you find some relief.
You take what you need. You earned it.
My doctor can no longer prescribe my pain killer meds to be refilled automatically - even though I've been taking the same meds since 1985. Each month he must hand carry a written prescription the pharmacy, sign three different forms and attest that he's informed me of all the conquences of long term opiod use. Duh.
I like my doc, he's a good one. It's one reason I make the 300 mile trip to see him. But everybody above him need to get busy finding a way to make the VA run as a business, not a charity where people go to die.
My VA pension is pretty good, not on par with what I might make with my piers if I was in the workforce again, but it's ok.
Medical equipment is highly varied. At the hospital I regularly go to that's a 300 mile round trip, they are tight. They act as though they were paying for things from their own pocket. If my wheelchair is broke, I need it fixed or replaced today, not in 6 weeks after they fit it into their next appropriation.
When I visit the Regional Medical Center, things are taken care of in a much more aggressive manner. The problem is that facility is 460 miles away from home. It's a hard drive for me right now and takes several days to recover from the trip.
I guess I'd give the VA a 5 out of 10.
My father is a WWII vet. I am a retired nurse. I won't get into the (complicated family) details, but I was dead set against the VA. My sister, though, due to price, began ordering his medications from the VA. To do this he had to be seen by the VA docs. He was going to his private physicians AND the VA docs.
Continuity and communication are vital to good medical care. This was a mish-mash.
When I took over my father's care, I knew I was going to drop one set of doctors. I knew nothing about the VA system, other than what I have been exposed to via the media, so I decided to see for myself.
I was shocked!
I ended up dropping all his personal physicians! I found the VA docs, scheduling, responsiveness, time spent with my father, etc to be far superior to what was available in my Dad's tony Connecticut town. It reminded me of the good old days when docs practiced the art of medicine rather than mastering the art of following medical algorithms and data entry.
I was shocked, to say the least. I would give the West Haven, CT VA Hospital and the satellite office local to my father, a 9 out of 10.
This "grade" is for services provided 2011-13. My father is presently in a private Skilled Nursing Facility. I have to say since he has been back in the private sector, his level of care has declined.
I live 150 miles from 4 VAMCs. Hines in Chicago is so bad that vets just say it's the hospital you are sent to in order to die. Jefferson Barracks in St Louis seems to have moderate skills, but it's also a regional center. What the VA calls a "Vizen". (I have no idea why) I've never been there but my brother and his wife use it for their care.
Next on the list would be the hospital in Danville IL, It once was a vibrant growing center - civil war era. I had some minor out patient surgery there 10 years ago. When I was rolled to surgery I was shocked to see paint peeling walls, lights not working and tiles missing from walls. The surgery room was bright and smelled approvingly, but I was still concerned.
Iowa City VAMC is were I go, the staff is impeccably professional and courteous. My Doctor specializes in Spinal Cord injuries and diseases. He is as knowledgeable as any I've had at the VA.
But once you get just a little above his level in the system, everything changes. Patients were each seen as a DRAIN on their funding. If doctors prescribe some medication that's expensive, it has to go though several hands to determine "need". It doesn't matter that the doc already did when it was ordered.
I actually had one prosthetics chief deny payment for a $95,000 truck and conversion because the truck was ordered with a bedliner - she considered it to a luxury item that was not needed. I was the one paying for the $60,000 truck including the bedliner. She was rather forceful in saying that if she had her way, the VA would only covert minivans since "no veteran in a wheelchair needs a truck or anything else." Shortly after that conversation she was promoted to some office in DC where she's busy deciding what we need.
Eventually the dealer removed the bedliner from the list of options and I paid him for it directly. It was the clearest example of Big Brother knows best I've encountered.
The last one on my list is hines - let me only say it's bad, very, very bad. Walter Reed was a shining castle on a hill compared to WR. No doubt about it, the docs there saved my life, but what a crap hole it was.
My previous hospital was in Albuquerque NM. It was a hospital that was much like the one you describe on CT. Sadly it's just too far to drive to. But I'd wouldn't mind moving back to the south west.
It appears his experience was an anomaly.
Watched someone with blown out feet (from a bad jump gone worse), that was told they'd never walk, or at best have to use a walker or 2 canes for the rest of their life, get a very specific weed recommendation from a "pot doctor" (at that point they were willing to try anything), and within a year and change they went from wheelchair-bound to normal. Walking, running, climbing. They then went back to the original doctor who said it was impossible for that to happen - yet that person was walking, living, breathing proof. (Side note - they stopped using weed after getting the "recovered" diagnosis from 3 MD's... )
Or... is it better to have regulations prohibiting people from doing (or trying) things others don't agree with, because, well, society has all the answers, so people had better just bow to it?
So if the Senate is voting for something I automatically smell a very old dead rat.
That was yesterday. Today the Representatives tied something along those lines to and a few other things to the immigration bill.
the rat is bloated and the odor of the disease of poltiics is permeating the air in stench like fashion it's enough to make one vomitas projectile.
Most all plants have some good and bad points and uses. But this one really stinks
Cui Bono?
Unjustified? It is the only justification the conversation has. Define 'a lot of' and define 'suffer'. Facts man! Facts! Cites! Sources!
And as an afterthought are you still going to vote for those who are obstructing?
The part that got me was the unanimous vote of the Senate.
RINOism at it's very best and you want me to vote for one of these scum to be President?
There you have it how the RINOs plan to solve the problems at VA Don't treat them DRUG
them .