Like minded vets organized around veterans health care?

Jim,

I just read material on your web site for the first time and was duly impressed! Your reply to an inquiry (vol 58) from a veteran in Portland, Oregon was perhaps the most intelligent I have ever read on the topic. I'm envious of your health care professional background; I wish I had that kind of knowledge and experience.

My own background: I am an over-65 veteran entitled to no-cost VA health care benefits by virtue of being a Purple Heart recipient. I am enrolled in Medicare Part A (but not Part B) as a precaution. I have a few years experience counseling Medicare recipients (mainly helping them select policies and resolve insurance problems) though the government's Senior Health Insurance Benefits Assistance program. Knowing what I do about Medicare, I decided to rely exclusively on the VA health care system.

Like your writer (vol 58), I also receive services from the VA Portland hospital and have encountered the same problem of administrators pushing through excessive numbers of patients just to make themselves look good. Waiting rooms in some of the specialty clinics are crowed with no chance of hospital personnel being able to maintain the appointment schedule. And, this isn't my opinion, it's the complaint from hospital staff members including doctors themselves. One doctor I talked to was completely embarrassed by the situation and very critical of the hospital administration.

My question is: how can I be put into contact with other like-minded veterans (such as your writer in vol 58) who might want to become active locally? Ordinary veterans organizations seem to be more "social" than "activist/critical", and I don't know of any group (formal or otherwise) having a specific purpose of addressing veterans health care issues.

Reply:

I don't know of any such groups.

We veterans are our own worst enemy. We are poorly organized and don't play well with others. The generations, WWII, VN Era and the current GWOT veterans don't talk to each other. Groups like AL and VFW don't particularly want some veterans to join them.

Our "representatives" at DAV and VFW and so on are mostly interested in feathering their own nest and really have very little to do with the common veteran.

I do what I do on my own with no support or affiliation with any group. I have been sharply criticized by DAV and VFW for my work and my positions on issues that affect veterans.

We have met the enemy and he is us.