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While the controversy swirls around the mass dismissal of last week of 1,000 employees of the Ministry of Veterans, a much greater threat to the health care of veterans goes completely unnoticed. Powerful leaders in the congress discreetly unveiled their plan to interact the care led by VA, wrapped in the sadly entitled “Act of access to veterans“If veterans do not act quickly, they will lose the health care system goes on which they know and depend.
The bill seems quite harmless, with aspirations of responsibility. But don’t be fooled. Hidden in its depths as a time bomb is a provision intended to dismantle the integrated health care system goes faster than you can say “privatization”.
Here is their sneaky Trojan Horses attack: in response to difficulties with drug addiction and the challenges of mental health with which many veterans are faced, the bill would allow unhindered access to the private ambulatory treatment without any authorization or reference GO. No question asked. No railing. The Va would simply pay the invoices of its limited trunk. This is phase one.
Then, after three years, this arrangement is intended to include all medical care, fundamentally transforming the main role of the VA of a health care provider in an insurance company writing checks.
Follow the money, which will be hemorrhagic from AV to the private sector. The probable result is that the will close its services for hospitalized patients and rather become a sprawling assortment of ambulatory clinics. If it seems familiar, this is the plan set out in the 2025 project game book. Veterans are silent that the facilities are on which they count will not be affected. Do not buy it for a second.
Do you think this forecast is an exaggeration? Be careful again. Independent health care experts warned Last year, the survival of the VA system is in danger if the leaked community care expenses (the term for private health care funded by the AV) – which increased by 15 to 20% per year – slows down not. This bill strikes the gas pedal.
If the VA is transformed into an insurance agency and reduces direct care, veterans will be thrown into places where there are long -standing shortages in primary care providers, mental health, hospitalization and d ’emergency. Half of American countiesAnd 80% of rural countieseven missing a single psychiatrist. Nearly 200 rural hospitals have closed and more than 700 others – a third of all rural hospitals in the country – are on the collapse. In this desert of health care, which will deal exactly our veterans?
In addition, entirely absent from the Access Act is all recognition that the VES must desperately develop, and not shrink, its workforce. The shortage of personnel, who was worrying before the new administration took office due to an influx of almost 400,000 newly registered pacts-The eligible veterans, have become more and more urgent. Without a substantial addition of health personnel, the VA will have to reduce the services on which veterans.
What do you want to know elsewhere could follow the explosion of community care costs? The congress is not in the mood to massively increase the Budget of VA, so it would have any choice than to reduce who is eligible for care. This is exactly the plan Reported by the Heritage Project 2025 Foundation – Eliminate the advantages of health care for entire cohorts of veterans.
Many veterans deeply appreciate the convenience of being referred to community care near their homes. But here is the botter: we know nothing about the overwhelming impact of this plan to convert the AV with what is essentially an insurance company. If they knew it, they would never be.
Recent declarations of Foreign wars’ veterans,, American veterans with disabilities and the American Legion has shown to be overwhelming support for members to ensure that the VA remains the primary health care provider and the veterans care coordinator. An anterior VFW report Involving that 10,000 members have found that 92% explicitly prefer that the VA is “fixed, not dismantled”.
Placing ideology before the well-being of veterans is a betrayal. The veterans have gained law, through service and sacrifice, to the finely settled integrated network of expert service providers who have treated millions of physical and psychological injuries specific to veterans. It is a system where revolutionary research on the SSPT, Traumatic cerebral lesionAnd Burn Pit Exhibition has helped countless former members of the service, where you can see your health care team, in one place, one day, under one roof.
Veterans, talk now before it is too late. Contact your members of the Congress and tell them what you think of a bill that will empty your health care system.
– Russell B. Lemle is a main analyst of policies at the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute. His recent military article.com approached “The congress must support the partnership of the VA and firearms industry to prevent suicides from veterans. “”