YES WE CAN! kick wounded vets in the........

[Chee-to]

Easy there partner. Seems to me like you’re tell’n the Penguin that maybe this ain’t the right(note the double entendre)forum/venue for him(or by inference, those that share his opinions?).

I actually look forward to PP’s intelligent and insightful posts. Besides these, he’s a real asset here in that he breaks the stereotype that many liberals seem to have about gun owners(and he owns many).

But apart from any of this, he stated in post #3 on this thread that he is a Vet of the Gulf War which in my book makes him more than welcome here or anywhere, regardless of where he stands politically or his opinions (which, again, IMO, are pretty right on. I’m no "liberal either-nor a conservative–more of a realist than anything.

Yup, this would be a pretty boring place if we all agreed with each other............

 

[whphel]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/10/veterans.health.insurance

"Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance."

YES YOU WILL!

All I have to say is if that is the fact, and they do do this we are no longer in the greatest country in the world. When you no Longer take care of the very people who who fight to defend this country and the constitution it makes me very VERY angry and brings a tear to my eye. What I may ask, have we done, not just you and me but our parrents, great grandparents and great great grandparents. Im at a loss here. Its not just Obama this has been a long time coming. We should not even be having to discuss half of the things we do on this site or have to worry. If we all (everyone) did there do dilligence, payed attention and focused on freedom and liberty with our votes.

My thoughts spelled out here my seem jumbled but I was provoked by the topic of this thread and thought I would respond.

 

[rhtwist]

There is a necessity for Health Care Reform. Not necessarily OB's plan but some plan that works. I do not wish to subsidize drug addicts, or professional welfare families or illegal immigrants, but there are people who honestly have worked and did their duty and require help. With CEO of insurance companies making over 100 million dollars a year, I believe there is some room of compromise. I'm not a socialist, just concerned that people have paid SS for their whole lives and it was spent for other programs. I do not know what the answer is so if you care to flame me it is for no effective reason. Yes some have had the opportunity to save and plan and many have not for various reasons. I'm not prepared to watch the one's who didn't, lose their lives or savings for medical reasons. So there you have my ideas of compromise.
rhtwist

 

[terrylf72]

This is just my $0.02.. but after seeing and remembering what I father went through in the late 70's and 80's after spending 6 years in the jungles of Vietnam.

If you a solder in service of this great country no matter how long of serveice, see combat and are wounded like so many of the great men and women who have lost thier life, minds (P.T.S.D.), limbs and souls have already paid the great price to this country and there for should be free of all taxs for life, (no matter what) . Free health care for LIFE no matter how long or short that turns out to be. And if said solder is or was married thier spouce and children although not free from taxs should and in my mind receave the same health care for LIFE.

And I say the children should as well, cause I beleave (not sure of the true number) that it is somewhere in the 70% that most children of of solders also grow up to serve.

Im done, the more I write the madder Im getting. this should not even be an issue... these crack smoking idiots in DC need to start thinking about thier country and stop thinking about thier bank accounts before they send this country in direction that will only serve to devide this country and start something that might just end it.

 

[redmistnmysight]

I believe that someone who gives themselves before others should have the respect they deserve. Thus health care and other benis.
Just my opinions.

 

[Joe Link]

Though this thread veered toward and is now bordering the no non-firearm-related political discussion, as long as it continues to stay civil we'll keep it open

 

[tionico]

Not sure I can steer this back to involving firearms directly, but I'll have a go....

I've been convinced for years the real issues in the whole medical care system is that it is no longer a true free market system. If it were, and one insurance company pays their CEO's a hundred mill per annum, that is a rather HUGE item on the expense side of the ledger. ANother company, paying their execs a reasonable/competitive wage would be able to charge lower premiums, thus attract more business, and be more profitable. The fact this does not seem to be the case tells me there are "hidden factors" to which we the people are not privy.

If it were a true free market system, a given doc could refuse to buy the outrageous MP insurance (one guy I knew locally had his premiums increase from about $400/year to $1200/month over about four years). If someone did sue, he doesn't own anything.. leased space, exempt home, old car, also exempt. The lawyers would go hungry, the unscrupulous "victim" would have to pay them too.

Now, in cases where the doc really DOES mess up, do something stupid, etc, of course the Medical Board in his state needs to investigate and TAKE ACTION, something rarely done. (they look out for each other, they do.....) The risk of losing his license to practice medicine is enough to strike fear in the heart of any doctor. (he'd have to turn to plumbing, or selling clothes on eBay....) But, the reality is most malpractice suits are initiated on a thin thread of shakey evidence, and are settled out of court (deals made between the suits of the lawyers and insurance adjusters involved). The few that do go to trial cost megabux to press/defend, (again, the lawyers get fat, and the insurance companies feed them). And the rare few that get a favourable judgement get more than enough to keep the token on the table for another spin of the wheel.

Bust THIS system, and there goes the largest single expense for those in practice. Limit the size of punitive damages (six mill for "inconvenience"? Yeah, right. Why not sue again for having to suffer through the whole "(or)deal" of a trial, doubling the award for their trouble?)

Another part of the insurance issue is that most states require, before a given company can sell insurance in that state, that certain extraneous/extravagant types of care are covered for ALL insured. There are many types of coverage I will never need or want, when I buy insurance for my car, house, business, property, I can pick and choose what I want. Basic liability is all that is REQUIRED. Comprehensive, collision, uninsured motorist, lower deductibles, towing, loss of use, full replacement cost.. all are optional, I am not FORCED to buy any of them. Why, when it comes to health insurance, am I FORCED to buy the whole meal deal? This leads to some, who would profit by them, to "find" more "cases" of those covered "conditions". Part of why there are so many kids now on Ritalin for their "learning" or "attention deficit" "disabilities". Cover ANYTHING at which unscrupulous practitioners can make a buck, they will "find" more "cases" to treat. End this racket as well. Open things up to a true free market situation. "Oh, sir, you are not interested in coverage for elective cosmetic surgery?" "No, Ma'am, my nose is perfectly acceptible just as God made it". OK, then, we won't include coverage for such treatments". Now, what would be so wrong about that? They've got their actuarial tables for everything... and can work out the additional risk they have for ANY coverage desired.

Oh and one more bit... that doc I know who had his MP insurance fly through a new hole in his clinic roof told me that, in order to comply with the requirements of his insurance company (to increase their pool of "evidence" to fight malpractice) he had to hire on new staff to mind all the increased paperwork and records, maintain the high level of government required "privacy protection" games, and got in the habit of ordering greatly increased lab work to "cover all the bases" in case of a suit. This has added "collateral costs" to the cancerous growth of the malpractice game. Most of this is either mandated by government or the insurance companies, and significantly adds to the cost of providing medical "care", even though it does NOTHING to increase the health and wellbeing of any patient.

Again, a free market system would take care of most of this.

If I were given the option of choosing between two docs:

first, a doc who has a sign on the wall at his clinic stating, in effect, "I don't have anything available to pay a lawsuit award, I have no malpractice insurance, I do not comply with their requirements for extraneous testing, therefore I require all my patients to sign a statement indemnifying this clinic from all damages real or perceived whilst under my care. Since I refuse to carry these overhead expenses, my rates are lower, and I pass these savings along to you, my client. You have chosen to forgo any claims against us for negligence in return for lower costs of service, and do this freely."

Second doc, the typical one today paying 20x what he should for MP insurance, dealing with all the extra costs, etc, with no sign on his wall, and charging, oh, about four times as much for an office visit.

I'd do whatever it took to remain in the good graces of the first guy, in a New York minute. And if there were ten guys like the first one in my town, it wouldn't be hard to find out who is good, and who is careless. The careless one would be hungry, lowering his rates to keep eating. and I'd not feed him. The good guy, there wouuld be a line out his door.... and someone else hanging out HIS shingle in the next block, knowing there is a good market to serve.

End of medical care problem. I could easily afford to pay for whatever care I need, as I need it. Would not even need insurance, exept perhaps catastrophic coverage (in case a tree falls on me and breaks my neck out in my own yard.... or I ride my bicycle off a cliff going down a hill at sixty miles an hour)

Come to think of it, if this last one happened I suspect the only expense would be for someone to dig a hole and plant what's left of me......

why can't the monkeys in the marble zoo next the Potomac GET this thinking? I know, I know... they're almost all lawyers. Now THERE is the root of the problem.

 

[dario541]

Tionico is spot on! I think the biggest curse on America is that we seem to only allow LAWYERS to rule the government (Ronnie Reagan, where are you? We need you now!) Another problem is the low intelligence level of voters. They claim to HATE Congress and then they continue to vote the @#%*+&%'s back in decade after decade. There has always been a bigger turnover in the British House of Lords and in Russia's Supreme Soviet than there is in America's Congress! This is representative government??

 

[tionico]

And it is these same "representatives" who are repeatedly returned to their thrones who continue to restrict our right to arms, the whiles doing nothing of substance to limit crime. Again, as Dario said, the voters are unthinking, buying the media "packaging" of the lawyers who run for office, repeatedly sending the same clowns to "represent" us, but who refuse to uphold the law of the land, our Constitution.

There, I brought it back round too firearms, and that in only two sentences. Thanks for the "opening", Dario......

 

[Ding]

they should just give the people that are not able to get health care a card, a card where they can go anywhere to receive treatment and leave everything else the way it is other than opening up the borders to insurance companies to compete outside of the state.I never thought I would see the day when radicals took over the country.I started seeing some of it in small doses but with this"administration" it is finally here.once he puts his agendas in place they can't be undone or will take an act of god to get un done.The majority of the people are either asleep,don't care or are happy to get free stuff,I think all three.This sure isn't the country that I knew 20+ years ago.I would think if the military started telling recruits"if you get zapped" in a CZ your health insurance is zilch,not many if any will enlist,then what.Obama is on the right track to dis-embowel the back bone of this country,the military.

 

[Gunner3456]

To all of you who served, my deepest thanks for your service. If you were wounded, I owe you even more. If you are still suffering from physical or mental wounds, God bless you and I'm happy to pay my share for your treatment.

I'm not going to join the argument as to how you get treatment. I just want you to have the best treatment we can offer.

With all the waste, fraud and excess at the federal level, surely we can find the relatively tiny amount that's needed to take the very best possible care of our wounded vets.

$.02

PS My Dad has a purple heart and bronze star from WWII - Belgium. He landed at Normandy and made it to Belgium before he was wounded. He's still alive, living in Medford. He has the VA and Medicare and supplemental. He picks whichever one he thinks will do the best job at the moment when he needs something.

Again, God bless every one of our Vets.

$.03

 

[Ding]

ahh the white city DOM..been there along with roseburg.

 

[Gunner3456]

ahh the white city DOM..been there along with roseburg.

ahh yes. Would you rather go to a private clinic or hospital?

Dad uses the Dom for hearing aids and prescriptions and a few other things. Everything else he uses Medicare and supplemental and goes to his private Dr. or hospital here.

I'm truly not trying to join an argument. #1 for me is only that our vets get the best possible care, whatever it takes.

 

[dario541]

I'm not sure, but weren't Vets promised this care? Isn't this similar to Union people who claim that they have a right to some benefit because it was included in their contract? If Obama Bin Laden wants to take care of his Union buddies, why does he want to throw Vets under the bus?

 

[Gunner3456]

Just from my experience with Dad, the VA clinics and hospital aren't that great. Government, you know...

Dad would far rather use his Medicare and supplemental and go to a private Dr. or hospital when he needs care.

YMMV.

 

[CEF1959]

Socialized medicine for veterans should be a right, guaranteed to them all, without premiums. And, you know what, I'm willing to have my taxes pay for that. Why? Because it's the right thing to do. Even if you only served in a non-combat unit for 4 years in the US, you still served your country, and you should not have to face the horror of uninsured medical bills. Call it socialism if you want to, but I call it doing right by those who have done right by us.

 

[CEF1959]

Just from my experience with Dad, the VA clinics and hospital aren't that great. Government, you know...

Dad would far rather use his Medicare and supplemental and go to a private Dr. or hospital when he needs care.

YMMV.

Your father is lucky to live in a country that provides free government-paid medical care for both seniors and vets. He gets to choose. Imagine a country that hated such "socialized medicine." A lot of vets, and a lot of seniors, would be SOL. We wouldn't feel right living in a country like that, would we?

 

[hm1ing]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/10/veterans.health.insurance

"Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance."

YES YOU WILL!

That happens now...Everytime I go to the VA my private Insurance company is billed, for my service connected Disbility treatment:huh:

 

[hm1ing]

Who do you think is paying the insurance companies? We the people...that is who. Why should they not do what they are being paid to do and allow the government money to go towards improving VA hospitals and providing better care for vets that are not lucky enough to have private insurance?

Let's see...Private insurance can deny treatment for pre-exisisting condictions. VA bills your private insurance to get partial payments, It's starting to look like a merry-go-round. After all, they could just hold you on Active Duty for your treatment?

 

[johnboy]

As has been said....there is no real way we can ever repay those who fought , bled, and died for our country. We CAN however, offer them the best medical treatment available...but we do not and it is a tragic slap in the face to our vets. My father fought in WWII and Korea and as many who came back, were not the same again. They deserve the best because they are the best.............................