Mitt Romney is no friend of Veterans
Romney, who is not a veteran, seems to have a 1960’s view of the VA.
Too bad Romney has never taken the time to find out how good VA
medical care actually is.
Thomas Mangan
Today mail carriers are delivering the Spring 2012 issue of Veterans’
Wellness magazine to the homes of veterans in upstate New York.
The timing couldn’t be better. Veterans’ Wellness arrived in the
mailboxes of upstate New York veterans one day after Rochester area
veterans received a large postcard in the mail from the Veterans
Outreach Center.
Almost at the same time, Rick Santorum dropped out of the race to be
the Republican presidential nominee, which leaves Mitt Romney as the
likely Republican candidate, and Mitt Romney is no friend of veterans.
Mitt Romney wants to privatize veterans’ health care benefits.Even
arch-conservative Fox News covered the story last November 11th,
Veterans Day, when Romney announced during a campaign stop in South
Carolina that he wanted to privatize the VA, by giving veterans
vouchers instead of providing care through the VA
Romney, who is not a veteran, seems to have a 1960’s view of the VA.
He must think that VA hospitals are filthy, with antiquated equipment,
and an incompetent staff. But this is 2012, and the VA has come a long
way since Vietnam; a long, long way.
Today mail carriers are delivering the Spring 2012 issue of Veterans’
Wellness magazine to the homes of veterans in upstate New York.
The timing couldn’t be better. Veterans’ Wellness arrived in the
mailboxes of upstate New York veterans one day after Rochester area
veterans received a large postcard in the mail from the Veterans
Outreach Center.
Almost at the same time, Rick Santorum dropped out of the race to be
the Republican presidential nominee, which leaves Mitt Romney as the
likely Republican candidate, and Mitt Romney is no friend of veterans.
Mitt Romney wants to privatize veterans’ health care benefits.Even
arch-conservative Fox News covered the story last November 11th,
Veterans Day, when Romney announced during a campaign stop in South
Carolina that he wanted to privatize the VA, by giving veterans
vouchers instead of providing care through the VA
Romney, who is not a veteran, seems to have a 1960’s view of the VA.
He must think that VA hospitals are filthy, with antiquated equipment,
and an incompetent staff. But this is 2012, and the VA has come a long
way since Vietnam; a long, long way.
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Too bad Romney has never taken the time to find out how good VA
medical care actually is.
According to the Washington Monthly:
In 2003 the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a
study that compared veterans’ health facilities on 11 measures of
quality with fee-for-service Medicare. On all 11 measures, the quality
of care in veterans’ facilities proved to be ‘significantly better.’
The Annals of Internal Medicine recently published a study that
compared veterans’ health facilities with commercial managed-care
systems in their treatment of diabetes patients. In seven out of seven
measures of quality, the VA provided better care.”
It seems Mitts father, George, never taught Mitt that if it isn’t
broken, don’t fix it.
If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.
The two documents that Rochester area veterans received this week
highlight the two great resources available to veterans in the
Rochester area, one of which is only available locally.
Veterans’ Wellness magazine is published by VA Health Care Upstate New
York located at 919 Westfall Road Rochester, NY, which is also the
location of the VA’s Rochester Community Based Outpatient Clinic,
which is a satellite facility of the Canandaigua VA Medical Center.
The Outpatient Clinic, the Medical Center, and the Vet Center are all
outstanding facilities, where veterans encounter little or no
bureaucratic garbage during a visit. When you arrive at the Outpatient
Clinic or the Medical Center, you scan in your VA card and take a seat
for a few minutes until you can see the medical staff.
If a veteran has a prescription that needs to be refilled, they don’t
have to worry about it. The prescription arrives in the mail within a
few days.
The Vet Center is a small facility and someone from the staff greets
you personally when you arrive.
Privatizing the VA Health Care system won’t make the situation better
for veterans, it will make it worse. Have you ever tried to deal with
the bureaucracy at Blue Cross/Blue Shield, or any other private health
insurance company?
While the VA provides a nationwide resource for veterans, the Veterans
Outreach Center is a privately funded organization founded by the
members of Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 20.
"Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another."
Vietnam Veterans of America’s founding principle
“The Veterans Outreach Center in Rochester is the oldest community-
based veteran outreach effort in the country. It opened in 1973 to
support Vietnam Veterans coping with their wartime experiences and to
facilitate government benefits claims.
Over the years the Veterans Outreach Center has evolved to the meet
the contemporary and ever-changing need of all veterans.”
Today, the Veterans Outreach Center helps veterans of all eras --
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Operation Iraqi
Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, and those who served during
peacetime.
Rochester’s Veterans Outreach Center is a truly outstanding place that
has literally saved the life of more than one veteran. But there is no
Veterans Outreach Center in Buffalo, or anywhere else in upstate New
York. The VOC is a one of kind operation that can’t fill the needs of
all the veterans in upstate New York, much less all the veterans in
the entire country.
The VA and the VOC are complementary organizations that fill different
niches in assisting veterans. Nobody’s perfect, and no government
organization id perfect, not even the VA.
But if Mitt Romney succeeds in privatizing the VA, he’ll be guilty of
throwing the baby out with the bathwater
SEE:
http://www.examiner.com/article/mitt-romney-is-no-friend-of-veterans