Care For Veterans Essay

In today's society where opinion matters, people have been extremely vocal about the lack of support the government has provided to our veterans. Many feel as if the government should do more, while others feel as if they are doing enough. Everyone will have a difference of opinion no matter if they have severed in the military or not. No matter how one may feel, is extremely important to take care of our veterans. As they have sacrificed their lives, time, and family to protect our country. Contrary to one's belief, the government provides a substantial amount of programs, which support the veterans. Honestly more could be done. On any given day you could see women and men standing on the corner holding signs implying they are homeless veterans and will work for food. A few programs the government offers our veterans are funding for mental health services, The Wounded Warrior Project and Vocational Rehabilitation and Education, which will be discussed throughout this essay. When you research the programs, they make it sound as if all proceeds are going towards the best treatment and care money could buy.

One of the most serious problems facing all veterans today is the lack of proper healthcare. Soldiers, sailors and airmen are leaving active duty without having proper healthcare to cover their physical or mental injuries. The department responsible for veteran’s healthcare is the Department of Veterans Affairs. (VA) According to The department of Veterans Affairs website, “The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is responsible for administering programs of veterans’ benefits for veterans, their families, and survivors. The benefits provided include disability compensation, pension, education, home loans, life insurance, vocational rehabilitation, survivors’ benefits, medical benefits and burial benefits. It is administered by the United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs.” The VA, who was formerly called the Veterans Administration, was established 21 July 1930, to consolidate and coordinate government activities affecting war veterans. The VA encompassed the functions of the former U.S. Veterans ' Bureau, the Bureau of Pensions of the Interior Department and the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. On 25 October 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation creating a new federal Cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs to replace the Veterans Administration effective 15 March 1989 (V.A.)

Over the past 15 years, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) has seen a dramatic increase in the average degree of disability, growth in the number of compensation recipients, a rise in the number of medical issues claimed and an increased level of complexity of claimed issues. To illustrate this point, prior to the September 2011 terrorist attacks, 333,700 Veterans received compensation at the 70-100 percent level; however, these figures rose to over 1.1 million by the end of 2013. Additionally, since 2009, VA’s disability compensation workload rose 132 percent. This is in large part due to an unprecedented demand resulting from over a decade of war, military downsizing, economic issues, increased outreach, the addition of presumptive conditions and an aging Veteran population.

Current funding for veteran healthcare care is low and insufficient because of the large number of veterans, who are being discharged from the military as the country transitions to a democratic President. According to Dr. Rachel Nardin in her article about veteran healthcare, “Soldiers get excellent acute care when injured on active duty, but as revelations of poor conditions for soldiers receiving ongoing outpatient care at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center highlighted, service members often have trouble getting the care they need once active duty ends” (Nardin 1)

Veterans are being cheated out of their time, money, and resources while waiting for benefits from claims that are waiting to be processed. In the article, "Veterans Face Long Delays for Disability Claims" it states, "while veterans waited longer than ever in recent time for their wartime disability compensation, the Department of Veterans Affairs gave its workers millions

There are more than 500,000 homeless people in the United States.” In January 2014, communities across America identified 49,933 homeless veterans during point-in-time counts, which represents 8.6 percent of the total homeless population.” (http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/fact-sheet-veteran-homelessness). 91% are male, 98% are single, 76% live in the city, 54%have a lingering mental and/or physical disability. “... veterans live with lingering effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse…”(http://nchv.org/index.php/news/media/background_and_statistics/). We sit here on our electronics while there are homeless veterans that chose to fight for our country and now that they’re

According to a report by CNN in 2016, 307,000 veterans may have died waiting for healthcare from the VA (Devine). Considering that this might not be an outstanding number, it is still a major issue, and presents one of the more prevalent concerns with the VA today. Wait times are one of the most common complaints with the organization, and according to The New American, “The VA has been caught having large-scale problems with unsanitary conditions (spreading diseases), poor care, long waits, corruption (including bribes and kickbacks), enormous waste, inefficiency, falsifying wait lists, denial of services, unnecessary surgeries, and more” (Williamsen). Additionally, one VA audit found that 10% of veterans attempting to obtain medical care at a VA or VHA institution were forced to wait at least 30 days to get an appointment (“The US Veteran Health Care System Is Overwhelmed and Failing”). With a larger budget, the VHA could hire more medical employees to care for their numerous patients, and build more facilities across the country, giving them more space and increasing their capability to aid all veterans who require their services.

Veterans have a long history of being mistreated. Even the Veterans Affairs (VA), the people who are supposed to be helping them, don’t do a lot to help. They do not deserve to be treated the way they are. Veterans deal with problems like homelessness, suicide, PTSD, unemployment, drug abuse and issues with the VA. Most veterans also come back from war with a lot of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Veteran men and women of all ages have fought for our freedom, and gave us a place we can call home yet each night majority of them do not have a place to go or to call a home. “While 8% of Americans can claim veteran status, 17% of our homeless population is made up of veterans” (Veteran Homelessness). Each night they must worry about where they are going to sleep, what they are going to eat, and if they have the proper clothing for any weather that could come there way. These people chose to fight for us, and in return we are giving them nothing. A vast majority of these veterans also have the daily

Unfortunately, the healthcare system provided is full of corruption. In different VA hospital and care facilities across America there have been discoveries of unjust treatment and poor judgement calls that have affected many veterans. “ In 2013, a whistleblower revealed chronic understaffing and life threatening medical mistakes at a Mississippi VA hospital”(Leighton 4). This is just one of many different examples of the veterans affairs hospitals being unreliable. “I 2007 the Army general in charge of Walter Reed Medical Center was fired after the Washington Post revealed poor living conditions and excessive red tape at the facility”(Leighton 4). It is appalling that it has become so corrupt among the VA health care system that whistleblower have to be placed and hospital have to be shut down because of the lack of regard for care and the selfishness of the people who write the checks. In one of the above quotes it said that understaffing and possibly fatal medical mistake had occurred in the VA hospital. Why is it that the hospital was understaffed? The reason is, because the greedy people in charge are more concerned with how much they make a year rather than making sure that veterans get the care they deserve. The problem is not that the VA does not get enough money, “They pointed to the cost of veterans’ care, which they revised up from $717 billion to $943 billion- nearly $1 trillion in health and disability costs alone”(Vlahos 41), the problem is that they do not use it to help the veterans. About fifty-three veterans die each day waiting for their VA benefits to kick in while the VA is dealing with a huge backlog of claims that has amounted to about 900,000 reported (Walsh 1). The VA is putting off care for veterans to the point that many of them die each day, which causes the VA to have to pay claims to families of the

Not only did we relate this article to our textbook, but we also connected it to another resource. The addition article we found was titled “VA Scandal-a Battlefield of Deceit, Delays and Death for Veterans”. In this article, the writer discusses the problem of veterans having to wait on an extensive waiting list to get a claim for their benefits. She discusses how people are sickened by how long veterans have to

The Veterans Administration (VA) has taken steps to help alleviate the situation of severe backlogs in their health care system. The VA has implemented programs to help ensure that veterans experiencing urgent mental health needs will be able to attain same day services (p. 18, Philpott).

For younger veterans between the ages of 18 and 24, critical years for entering the workforce, the unemployment rate reached an alarming 30.2 percent, compared to a national average of 16.3 percent”(http://www.historynet.com, CONNATIX). These statiscics show that a couple of years ago the unemployment rate of younger veterans was at a high of 30.2% of vets unemployed. There is a domino effect between the struggles that vets can face. Americans can help out by donating money to organizations that help veterans which are homeless. Americans can also help by giving food or clothes to homeless veterans seen out on the streets that need assistance. There is a domino effect between the struggles that vets can face; veterans who are unable to get a job, leads to not having enough money to support themselves, which then leads to homelessness, which could then lead to depression and suicide. There is a domino effect between the struggles that vets can

However, I hope other medical and mental health facilities in this area are providing some form of treatment to the Veterans that are in need. In addition, I begin to worry about Veterans who are not service connected and may not have health insurance, but still need medical and mental health treatment. The VA is required to provide medical and mental health services to Veterans who have served in the military and do not have exclusions on their military records such as dishonorable

People view health care quite differently depending on whether they are sick or well or whether they have adequate health insurance or not. The purpose of this discussion is to locate an article or current news that relates to the understanding of the U.S. health care delivery system. In the article, VA To Improve Veterans’ Health Care, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki announced plans to improve health care for American veterans with a new $500 million state-of-the-art waiting room (The Onion). It is simply unacceptable that many of our brave men and women in uniform have been forced to sit in overcrowded, run-down waiting rooms at VA medical facilities throughout the country, and today I’m here to announce a long overdue addition