Veteran's Health Care

[CCarl]

I've decided to start a little conversation in the Coffee Shop, to see if Forum traffic picks up. I intend to write at length about Longton's ills down the road. But first, I wanted to share a letter I sent Dr./Senator Marshall about the lousy Health Care that veterans receive. He has not replied, he never does, neither does our senior senator. The letter is below. Any veterans of the same mind, or ones with decidedly better experiences?

Doctor/Senator Roger Marshall,

Bear with me while I get warmed up on a chilly fall morning. 'Brazil' was a 1985 dystopian movie that I remember very little of. What I do remember is room after room of desks after desks with no one sitting at them. Yet reams of blank paper flew from desk to desk, and down hallways from room to room. Is that what our general government has become, an endless documentation of meaningless data collected by the bureaucracy like an automaton?

To wit, a while back I received an email from the Veterans Health Administration with an important health-related survey to participate in. I remember looking at it, and being frustrated that there were only pre-selected answers to choose from. In other words, a veteran could not say what he/she really thought, but only generalize a pre-determined response to each question. I did not finish it.

A few days ago I received a VA letter in the snail mail informing me of an important survey from Ipsos, whatever that is. The letter provided me secure log-in User ID and Password to take the survey, along with a URL. It was the same health-related survey I gave up on. On further scrutiny, the important survey did not ask a single health-related question. It did two things, 1) it asked questions about the administration of the VHA, about ease of scheduling appointments, appointment timelines, smiling faces, and other non-health related topics; and 2) it data mined the veteran by asking irrelevant woke questions about race, sex, and sexuality.

It is a VHA survey on the veterans' health without a single health question asked! It is as meaningless as paper flowing room to room The survey is proof to me that the VHA is in trouble, and needs help. Of course headlines about burn pits and Agent Orange confirm the problems. The trouble is obvious, medicine has been replaced by bureaucracy, and leadership by medical practitioners has yielded to control by politicians and over-regulation.

Unfortunately, no survey from the VHA, or any other branch of the general government, will offer the opportunity for a veteran to express exactly what she/he desires or needs in medical care, or where the VHA is lacking in providing that care. So the rest of this memo addresses this veteran's concerns that a VHA survey will always miss, and offers some solutions.

It is being sent to you, Doc Marshall, because 1) you are a medical doctor, 2) the Senior Senator from Kansas has been in Washington DC too long, he has been drinking the water back there, and is now a cut above the State, and its people that he is supposed to serve, and 3) I have looked long and hard for an email to reach the Secretary of the VA, or one of his VHA underlings, to no avail. I was consistently directed to Ask VA or VA chatbot, both meaningless communication voids in my opinion, akin to that dystopian movie, Brazil.

Health care from VHA suffers the same ills as Obamacare, and other socialist health care programs. Patients/veterans are placed in boxes based on the demographics of our person and our illnesses. Those demographics are formulated by statistical models based upon a series of assumptions. We are little more than statistical concepts, treated according to a game plan provided by a huge government-industrial complex with acronyms like AMA, FDA, and WHO. As an example, at age 70, my need for a small aspirin a day ended, and suddenly I needed Eliquis. Nothing bio-chemically or medically changed at age 70. Nothing. What did change was my demographic, and the box that government controlled medicine places me in. And 'we' call that good medicine?

The big generality on what needs to change is easy, wellness needs to be more important than maintenance of disease for the mega-millions of dollars generated by proponents of the above acronyms. The solution, integrative medicine needs to begin, and demographic boxes need to end.

Integrative medicine means the VHA needs to offer the services of more than allopathic medicine. In addition to the typical prescription or surgery MD, veterans need the opportunity to see Holistic MD's, traditional DO's, Naturopaths, Chiropractors, Acupuncturists, etc. And I do not mean to see these other, alternative practitioners at the recommendation of a traditional MD, I mean at the request of the veteran.

I have seen six cardiologists the past eight years, one on the VA's staff, and five through the Choice/Community Care Program. They are all prescription or surgery specialists, offering the same medications, and the same procedures. They call ablation a simple procedure. As a patient, I call it an invasive one, I see it as surgical with a litany of possible adverse outcomes. And at what benefit, how well will it work, how long will it work? No answers come to those questions, but shoulders shrug.

So I have spent my own dollars to consult with a naturopathic cardiologist. I want to visit about the role of neurotransmitters, the endocrine system, the nervous system, and dietary and environmental influences, none of which any typical cardiologist has offered me. And I want to know about acupuncture options, oral or IV chelation options, and of course supplementation with mineral, vitamin, herbs, and amino acids. All veterans with heart problems should have those choices available to them.

The VA has been unwilling to approach that diversity of health care. I wonder how many veterans would have their health and their lives improved if such thorough, integrative thought were the primary basis of their health care. When I enlisted in the Navy the promise came from recruiter to boot camp instructor, to supervisors, that when I 'got out' the VA would cover my health costs, as long as I was discharged under honorable conditions. I went on with life, ignoring VA health eligibility until I retired at age sixty-six. Now I find the VA is unwilling to cover my health costs. It is only willing to cover the testing and treatments that the above acronyms approve. That difference is a huge limitation to health care and to veteran wellness.

And there is the biggest generality that needs to change. The VHA needs to honor its promise to cover our health care. And that means the care veterans want and need, no matter how alternative it is, and no matter how politically charged it may be. Money, money, money, I know. But here is a secret, the least expensive, and probably easiest way, to make that happen, is to let every veteran into the Community Care Program, let us all visit our local medical providers of our choice, and of any mainstream or alternative diagnosis and therapy allowed by the States we live in. Just make the VA a dispersal office and actually pay for all our health care, as promised years ago. Let the veteran make the choice of what health care.

Unfortunately, there is no government generated survey that will allow me or other veterans the opportunity to offer any of our own opinions. So Doc, I hope someone on your staff gives this more than sixty-seconds, and I hope you have a chance to read it. I will be sending a copy of this to Senator Paul, and to Representative Massie, as I respect both their efforts trying to keep the general government a Constitutional one. I wish the three of you would have lunch together, and hatch a plan to improve the VHA services by making communities the basis of medical care, instead of the needs of acronyms and the assumptions of medical models.

Thanks for your ear, Doc. Kansans need you.

My Best,
C Carl