Undoctrination.org

Growing up the daughter of two veterans and having later married one, I have heard my fair share of VA horror stories. If we don’t fight back in November and fight back hard, we’ll have a chance to see one of the struggles that our men and women in uniform face: trying to receive adequate treatment from a government-run healthcare system. I interviewed veterans and VA workers from across the country to get a better idea of the scope of the problem, and to see how it lines up with predictions about ObamaCare.

A Corporal in the Marine Corps (that’s “corpse” if you’re Obama) told me of the difficulties he’s endured over nearly 40 years after being shot in the hip with an AK47 in Vietnam. Shortly after, plates and pins were inserted, and it took another two and a half decades before he was able to convince the VA to perform a hip replacement. When they did, they used a prosthetic designed for someone much taller, and as a result it frequently pops out of the socket. That was 15 years ago, and he is yet to have the prosthetic replaced. Instead, the VA opts to keep him medicated.

“I am on 400 mg. of Morphine a day along with 40 mg. of Dilaudid plus other meds. Each month I have to fight them to get my pain meds on time, they have been as much as a week late. Towards the end of the month when my pains meds are do [sic] is real stressful, I have been hospitalized because they were late and I went through withdrawal. The V.A. even tho [sic] it was their fault [they] refused to pay the hospital bill.”

Sadly, this kind of dilemma in getting the pain medications needed—and getting them on time—is not out of the ordinary. In fact, some would say that this Marine is lucky to be given such a tailored prescription regimen. A disabled Air Force Sergeant told me of the personal struggles that led her to do volunteer work with other disabled veterans.

“I fought so hard to get [vocational] rehab, and it seemed like they were more concerned with getting me out of the way. I finally found a doctor who really wanted to listen to me. I now see her at her private practice for pain management, because the VA pain management program only prescribes Methadone. It’s just so much cheaper. It doesn’t matter what your injury is, everyone gets Methadone and everyone gets the same amount.”

While the VA dosing guidelines offer vague cautions as to the “complexities of dosing methadone”, the same document also dismisses criticism by those “have suggested the drug be prescribed by practitioners with relevant experience in an adequately monitored setting”.

I had the opportunity to speak to the pain management doctor that the aforementioned Air Force veteran is being treated by to discuss her allegations against the VA system regarding indiscriminate Methadone dosing. Not only did she confirm that the VA is encouraging doctors to write the same prescription nearly verbatim to each patient, she also voiced concern about whether some of the drugs being offered were safe.

Military doctors and the VA have been in trouble as recently as the end of August due to deaths caused by offering drugs in ways inconsistent with their FDA approval. An anti-psychotic, Seroquel, is the main offender. It has been used off-label for insomnia in veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and accounted for $125M in VA spending last year alone.

Though more expensive medications such as Ambien are specifically geared toward insomnia, the VA explicitly tells doctors not to prescribe it to patients with a history of depression or PTSD. Even if Ambien’s label warning includes such instructions, there’s no logic in saying that it’s less safe than substituting a drug that is geared toward an entirely different purpose—and with a history of fatalities.

Not only is it disheartening to think that our men and women returning from war are not receiving the treatment they need, it’s frightening to know that it’s being offered purely as a cost-saving measure.

Already we are seeing the prospect of life-saving breast cancer treatments having their FDA approval rescinded in a move of political posturing to prevent Medicare from having to pay for it. In addition, inadequate civilian pain management as a result of ObamaCare has already started. A Denver pain management clinic has been ordered to stop treating patients with their state-of-the-art method of cultivating a person’s own stem cells and reinjecting them. The government’s own FDA was behind this decision, as well.

Not all of the feedback I received about the VA was negative. Interestingly, those who retired from the military seem to have had better experiences than those who were discharged—and far better than those who received medical discharges and require more frequent visits. This helps confirms the obvious, that the flaws in the VA system are due not to evil or indifferent medical workers, but a systemic problem of “dysfunctional and inadequate” care. It also speaks to just how strong of an impact government bureaucracy has on everything it touches.

The problem that the VA has is exactly the same as everything else that we allow the government to take control of. Look at what corrupt unions have done to our education system. Our schools are inefficient and understaffed, while private schools continually provide a better education. They do so not because private school teachers are innately more skilled, but precisely because they are a private school. Such is true of the private healthcare sector as well.

Under ObamaCare, children will not only have their education decided by lobbyists, they will also be given the same drugs-first medicinal approach to improving health.

Our children deserve better than this. Our veterans deserve better than this. We all deserve better.