The More you know The Veterans Affair is a place that deals with the care, benefits, education, and overall transformation from the military soldier to a person finding their new place in society. The VA was created by the Continental congress to encourage people to enlist in …it was where veterans got their health care and needs after they were out of the service. There have been arguments about if the VA is doing a very good job on providing for veterans or if they are lacking
I found that veterans were put on secret waiting lists that would delay their needed treatment for months. The VA went under investigation and they announced that they didn’t know this was occurring. Another issue are homeless veterans. In a recent statistic showing homelessness among veterans differs depending on age, race, and sex. For example, for the ages between 45-54 the percent 40.8% of veterans are homeless base off of 10,726. In the category of race African Americans have a 46.0% rate of homeless veterans when in the other races they have a 54.0% and in the sex category is shows that there are more homeless male veterans then there are females. The statistic shows 89.8% males while the females only have 10.2%. Veterans today are becoming homeless because of being neglected by the United States health care and workforce. Yet some of the homeless veterans on the street are refusing to go to the VA for help because of addictions to illegal substances. Drugs can be a leading factor on veteran being homeless. This is a common thing with soldiers who have PTSD “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or TBI “Traumatic Brain Injury” they use substances to help cope with what they’ve been through. If the homeless veterans who are using this unhealthy copping method and need to go to the VA for help they are less likely to go knowing it will be taken away from them. There are many factors that contribute to the VA being the way it is now. Such as funding, having the lack of care for the veterans, corruption within the systems, politics. The VA process isn’t a walk in set up and get benefits right away, easy process, It takes a long time, paperwork needs to be filled out and they have to work with thousands of other veterans. Funding, is a huge a reason why that is a big issue because the are other issues to address such as poverty, war, and other countries that require aid from the U.S. This issue is almost out shed to the back without ever getting a second thought, Corruption is another issue, VA workers around the country have been putting veterans on secret waiting lists and neglecting them and so the outcome of this are veterans not having the treatment they need and in some cases even causing death of some veterans. There was a service member named berry who had symptoms of kidney cancer and was put on this waiting list and been neglected for so long he developed stage 4 kidney cancer. Another topic is politics which ties into funding issue. There are many politicians that believe there are more urgent cases that need to be dealt with instead of the VA. Recently President Obama vetod a bill that would potentially pay services members more money. It is little things like this that get denied and accumulated over time that causes issue within the VA. But here are some of the facts about the VA and its funding They build more clinics to help more veterans, statistic shows that in the last 12 months they have handled about 2.7 million patients. Budgeting the $2.5 Billion that they are given to fund the VA and it in the article that is more than enough to help a lot of veterans so just that right there make me question if funding is a big issue. Overall the VA is not a perfect system it has flaws. Waiting lists, the funding, having corrupted workers, denying care and service are only a few. There are too many homeless veterans than what there should be. The VA doesn’t realize these problems and they have performed measure to fix them. they have hired better doctors, open more clinics, and attempted to fix their wrong doing of the waiting list. We could also pass a bill where any veteran can go to any hospital that accept the VA system. We could have better organizations that donate money to the VA, and raise awareness of this issue because not a lot of people know about corruption within the VA and educate them what is it and why it’s important. |
Can we trust the VA?The Veterans Affairs (VA) is a place where veterans can go to transition from their military lifestyle to civilian life. The VA assists with benefits, healthcare, education, employment and even housing. The problem is not what they are doing but the issue of how the VA is lacking in these areas. For one thing, they are not getting the health care and service they need. There is also an increase of homeless veterans and unemployed veterans who are not educated on how they could benefit from the Veterans Affairs. I believe that these issues are something to be considered by all and those officials in the government who are involved with the VA, believe that it is corrupt and insufficient to help veterans. This lack of care or corruption is making it very difficult for many veterans to get the health care they need and be a contributor to the American society.
Veterans are put on secret waiting lists so it would increase the time for veterans to get the care they may need. Now one could ask why? Some of the reason may be that the VA over estimated how many patients would actually need care in the last year. They estimated 7 million patients needing the providing healthcare in the VA and they over spent their budget. What’s terrible about these secret waiting lists is that more than 50 percent of patients now get delayed about a month or even more since the last year when the scandal occurred in 2014.Another question we could ask is why aren’t they willing to hire more doctors, nurses, and other staff so they could help more veterans through the hospitals. The positive thing about this is that the government realized the rising issue and started to work on that very solution by hiring more people to help more patients. Hiring more staff also means they have to pay for more people and the training to make new employees qualify to work in these hospitals. The VA also struggles by that we can see from the many homeless veterans there are in need of help. I found this chart that shows that there are more homeless males then females and that a person’s race played a role as well. There are more homeless African American veterans more than anyone else, why are veterans homeless to begin with? They get out of the military and shouldn’t they be able to go to the VA and ask for assistance to get a job and be able to function with a normal civilian life? It’s common in veterans who have seen combat where they will suffer from PTSD “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” or TBI “Traumatic Brain Injury.” Why don’t veterans go to the VA to get this treated? The answer: they do. Veterans get diagnosed but they need more than that! To get completely treated they need employment they need a house they need stability. They need education, medical care and a meaningful social contact. They could receive help with these problems if veterans could only be seen by doctors. The VA is pushing and trying to get more funding from the government so they can help diagnose and treat these veterans Funding this program is crucial in the veteran’s affair because without these funds there would be a decrease in the resources that can be distributed within the facilities of the Veterans Affair. Without a functional facility or staff, veterans cannot receive the care they need. There are some situations where physicians can’t help more of the veterans that come in simply because the person doesn’t qualify. Now they are hiring more staff members with better experience so they can help out more vets and have more professional people around so they don’t have any corruption within the VA system again. To delve more into veterans and homelessness I called up one of my buddies who knows someone who works at the VA. He said that most of the homeless veteran’s refuse to go to the VA, that most of those homeless veterans are addicted to drugs and if they go to the VA the facility will take it away. I did some research to see if the information was true in some cases veterans would end up abusing substances because of illness they may have had while serving. Since these scandals, government officials have been cracking down on VA hospitals to make sure that every veteran is getting the care they need and making sure that nobody has been neglected, or put on secret waiting lists. Politicians have been trying to pass more bills to help fund the VA, they are doing the best they can to help these veterans get the care they need so they can be successful in their transition into a normal functioning life. |
Welcome to the VA
Welcome to the VA
Where your benefits will last
We promise you health care whenever you ask
All you got to do is sign this paper
Welcome to the VA
A place full of liars, scandals, and thief's
we’ll cheat you, mistreat you, and maybe even beat you
We may misguide you, but that’s okay we hardly even know you
it’s a place where nothing gets done.
Welcome to the VA
we’re not perfect but we want you to know that you’re all worth it.
Have a seat, take a number. you’ll never have to work
we have doctors and nurses ready to be put to work.
we have a full set of benefits. All you have to do is ask.
Welcome to the VA
you’ve gone on a tour and done your four
And maybe even lose an arm or more
So welcome to the VA where benefits will last