US Health care at Veteran's Hospital
Posted 40 weeks 6 days ago byIf you are wondering what it would be like to have government run health care, you need not look any further than a Veteran's hospital. It will give you a good idea of what it will be like. My late brother died while they gave him the run around . He was 50 years old and died so frustrated with the system that was supposed to take care of him that it breaks my heart just writing about it.
The overall inefficiency of the bureaucracy is what killed him in the end. My brother had a liver disease caused by hemachromatosis. He went from Florida to California, hoping that the system out there would be better than Florida. It wasn't. It was worse.Whenever he went for tests, it took hours. He was told that he was eligible for a transplant, but when he would go back to the hospital, he would have a different doctor and that doctor would want to do his own tests. He protested that he already did all the testing, to no avail.Finally,They sent him up to Seattle where the transplant people were and they told him that his shoulder, which was causing him tremendous pain, would have to be fixed first. He would need a replacement. His shoulder had deteriorated due to arthritis, also caused by hemachromatosis. So, back to California doctors. They said they would not operate on his shoulder until he had his liver done. I kid you not. Back and forth, fighting all the way with everyone. He became so frustrated that it was painful to listen to him about it as there was little that could be done.
I tried to help, and there was one doctor who was terrific, but he had no authority. My brother had a case manager, a bureacrat with too much power. She put him through the ringer. One day he yelled at her saying that she was going to kill him. SHe responded by saying that he wouldn't get any care until he saw a psychiatrist. She had the power.
He also had diabetes from the hemachromaatosis. He would go in to the hospital in a state of delirium and they would leave him. My sister went in to see him and they said that they did not know where he was. They didn't have a clue, nor did they care. He was only a vet.
He finally did get the shoulder done. He signed his life away in order to get the operation, but they did it. I guess they did not want to give him anaesthesia due to his liver failure. My brother new if he did not get the shoulder done, he couldn't have his liver, and he would die. So now he gets his shoulder and is ready for the transplant. Now, they say his liver isn't bad enough yet. He will have to wait. SO he waited until it got so bad that they put him on the list. THEN....after waiting several more months, they tell him that he is too sick. The liver deteriorated faster than they thought.
His doctor, also frustrated with the system, got him into a private hospital where he also worked in San Diego. He got on the list and was in the hospital waiting, when he died at 50 years old. I guess he pi**ed off the wrong person...his case worker who controlled his life.
Now I ask you.. Is this the type of health care you want. Now you know why I am so against having the government in charge of anything,
Thoughts
Diana
Submitted on May 30th, 2009 by BeoI might think about writing, but quite frankly, I think I get more satisfaction writng here than I would writing anyone in the government.
I hope your friend's eyes do get fixed. My father lost his eyesight and the loss of independance was a terrible blow to him. It is too bad that your friend cannot fight for his just treatment. I was on the east coast and my brother was on the west and this made it difficult for me to help. This man is very lucky to have you in his life.
The one thing I will say is that the military did give him a free gravesite and a military send off. Ironic.
Care at VA Hospitals
Submitted on May 30th, 2009 by dianaBeo, thank you so much for sharing your story here on this website. My sympathies to you and your family. I would urge you to write your story to the President with greater detail of the ordeal your brother, you and your family experienced while he ernestly tried to get the help he needed.
I am currently helping a disabled vietnam vet with 'simply' getting his cataracts taken care of. He has been to the Minneapolis VA hospital twice and both times they said his eyes 'weren't ready' to be operated on. I finally took him to a private physician who stated that his eyes had been ready for a very long time and that one eye in particular is so bad they had to do an ultrasound to locate the retina.
So I'm taking my savings to help him get his eyes back so that he can see. I feel it is the very least I can do for one who has served his country so unselfishly so that I can live with the freedoms I have come to expect and enjoy. He is such a proud American and our government and 'their' healthcare system, which 'they' run, should be absolutely ashamed of how they not only treat our serviceman, but Americans.
I think that one of the most
Submitted on May 29th, 2009 by John 2000notable themes of the book "Little Women" and numerous other presentations is that exposition based upon one's actual life experiences is very key to the effectiveness and believability of the presentation. So, there is no need to feel apologetic on that account. At the very least it is a good change of pace, and it gave me the opportunity to reflect and express a little of the same back.
I think just about everyone here has done so at one time or another. The back and forth in those previous blogs often point to the actual similarities among people over the rhetorical differences; a fact that always gives me a sense of hope.
John,
Submitted on May 29th, 2009 by BeoThanks for your kind thoughts. Generally I do not get so personal, but it just came over me that we should be so very careful about changing our health care system. We all saw what happened when the HMO's first appeared. The doctor's were incentivised to withold treatment. In some cases they were dropped from the HMO if they ordered too many tests etc. This did not stop until several lawsuits were launched.
I actually left out a lot of what happened with my brother, but I think you get the general idea. He was treated poorly and no one seemed to care except for this one doctor, This doctor had integrity and even emailed us about Jim. At least this doctor gave Jim a feeling of hope towards the end that someone involved in his care did care. This doctor was so frustrated with the system that he took it upon himself to have Jim transferred. He actually gave a S**t and I will always be thankful to him. I will always detest the woman who was in charge of his care and managed to completely destroy my brother's spirit. Enough of that.
Your article was interesting and it just goes to show that we need to be ever vigilent about our government. It is alarming that so many things have been pushed through without oversight or discussion during Obama's first 5 months in office. It is a tactic to push things through in the name of emergency. This strategy leaves people in a panic and willing to accept anything. We have been snookered by Bush and now by Obama into all these bailouts. Now we are being fed a dose of future shock and the Obama administration is taking full advantage of the emotionality of the economic crisis. He will try to push through all his social engineering while he is still the messiah, and no one has the b**ls to go against him. By the time we realize what has happened to our country, it will be too late. That is why it is important who OB appoints as SCJ. This is one more chink in the armor that is our Constitution.
The idea of putting health records on file disturbs me to some degree as I do not trust that the government will use the information just for our benefit. Le tme give a personal experience. My health organization has just started putting things on computer. A couple fo months ago I get a call from someone at the company who tells me that I have been selected as a person they will monitor. This bureaucrat tells me that she can tell by my recent tests that I have diabetes and she would work with me on this. I told her that she was mistaken, I do not have diabetes, nor have I ever been diagnosed as having it. I spoke to my doctor about this and he said that he only did some blood counts on me because of diabetes was in my family. So why is this secretary diagnosing me and where does the information go from her. What if I tried to get insurance elsewhere. Would they consider it a pre-existing condition even tho I never had the condition. It is a slippery slope.
So sorry to read this
Submitted on May 29th, 2009 by John 2000accounting of your brother and the experiences with the VA. How long ago was this series of events? I agree that a nationalized health system will prove to be an absolute disaster for so many people. It will absolutely be at the very least a two-tiered system with the special top of pyramid group being outside of the system altogether.
My experiences with the VA are not quite so bad as yours, but nonetheless somewhat unhappy. I developed a friendship with a virtual quadriplegic who had served in tanks in Germany. Having helped him write his life story I learned almost every thing about his life. He had been like a rebel without a cause, but he did his time and got out of the service intact. He drank a lot and drove the north coast of California roads with gusto until running head on into a tree.
Of course, this was a total life changing event and he had the most difficult time coming to grips as a difficult, bitter, and angry man. There were always many surgeries, therapies, and procedures. He was introduced to Christ by a friend and was enabled to turn himself around.
He learned programming though keyboarding, with a pencil in the mouth and very minimal use of arms, was most difficult. Being athletic and competitive by nature, he competed and even medaled in special olympics wheelchair races. Most of this was before I had the privilege of knowing him personally.
One day he got transferred to an office next to mine, and slowly we got to know one another. I was not used to being around such a condition, so maybe the slowness was mine. We did develop a mutual liking and trust, all the while with him going through one lengthy procedure or another, often related to infections and the like. Sometimes he would complain about the 'sobs' at VA.
We separated due to work changes but would keep in touch. Sometime down the road he had developed a brain cancer and at the same time was transferred to a VA much more convenient for me to visit. They kept changing the prognosis and stretching it out with no real treatment until one day they told him it was neither treatable nor operable. He could still drive his very specially fitted brown van. We would go places together. I took him to a 49er game once and by coincidence met Joe Montana on an elevator. Just the three of us for a brief moment.
When he died, I think I cried for a while at the drop of a hat or a random thought. In a way I felt relief for him, after so many years, well, he was ready. But I always wondered about the VA choices.
Earlier this evening I had become a little intrigued about some 'value added tax' that I had heard of as being a thing being promoted at the WH by Ezekiel Emanuel, who by the way is the brother of Rahm (one of my really trusted favorites not), and is a lead advisor to the president on all of this health stuff. There are a lot of glowing things written here and there about this person. But several references to euthanasia and the like caught my attention. So I dug around some and came across a most interesting presentation at a site I had not visited for several months, mostly because I often found material there to be disturbing while often accurate.
Anyway, here is that recent article:
(pdf)
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/20...
I do know that Summers and Orszag really do wig me out whenever I see or listen to them. This article really wigs me out ... because it makes sense when looking at the rest of the puzzle as I see it now. I do have a tough time resolving my affinity for Atlasshr... with LaRou... and I wish I could figure the key to that confliction.
Anyway ... I've said too much ...