A friend of mine from another forum is a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer. She has recently had some bad experiences with the "health care" provided to retirees. That prompted the following letter to go out:
Letter's going out to Obama, Lugar, Bayh, and Carson.
I would hope that folk could lend their weight to the issue as well.
One of the high priorities of the new administration is likely to be health care, in particular attempting to have some form of government provided/paid for health care for all Americans. This, however, would be seriously premature while there remain serious problems where the government is providing health care to those that are already its responsibility, such as people in the military, veterans and military retirees, and people covered by Medicare and Medicaid.
Some examples: A friend of mine is a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer. She has experienced dwindling coverage on medical and dental to the point that recently, the cost of the retirement "benefit" was actually higher than paying for private coverage. If the government cannot provide quality health and dental coverage to military retirees then how can it provide them to the American people as a whole?
When I was in the military, I suffered a knee injury when a ladder collapsed underneath me and I fell 15 feet to a concrete floor. I spent the next several weeks on crutches while my knee heeled. Since leaving the military I have had ongoing problems with that knee. Injuries of that nature tend to have long term consequences, getting worse over time. The Veterans Administration simply declared it a "0% disability" and not their responsibility. If the government cannot provide quality health care to me now, how can I expect it to provide quality health care to me in the future?
When I left the military, there was a period in which my "health coverage" was through Medicaid. During that time I had unconscionably long waits to see a provider. It was during this period that I started suffering periods of abdominal pain. By the time I could see a doctor the attack had stopped. Some testing was done but nothing was found. It was only after I obtained private health insurance that I was able to be seen in good time while the attack was happening and the cause could be discovered--intermittent gall bladder failure (it was only failing while I was having the attacks). Again, if the government could not provide quality health care to me when it had a responsibility to do so, how can I expect it to provide quality health care to me, or anyone else, in the future?
And so, I urge you to oppose any attempt to impose a national health care plan until such time as these kinds of issues are fixed. The government must first provide quality health care to people to whom it already has a responsibility before even considering expanding those responsibilities.
Thank you for your time.
Letter's going out to Obama, Lugar, Bayh, and Carson.
I would hope that folk could lend their weight to the issue as well.