[ussfa344]

Originally Posted by SuperScout

The entire issue of health care for vets could be solved so easily, and I'll wager, much cheaper than the current sacred cow that need to be led off to the slaughter house: for those vets that qualify, simply give them a MasterCard, or Visa Card, and tell them that anytime they need medical care or meds to just use that card, and the VA will pay the bill.

Scout/Folks,

I have mixed emotions on that when it comes to my personal health care. In my adult life I had a kidney stone 2006, a cold in 1991 that lasted less than a day, and a whole lot of shell fragment and gunshot wounds. Obviously I did nothing for the cold. I passed the kidney stone while in a VA Hospital, but before they had to take any measures other than giving me something for the pain.

That means all of my other medical care in the past forty plus years has been for combat wounds. Back in the late 1970s the VA gave me a card to go to any doctor of my choice on their dime. I have a wound right in the center of my chest that was hurting. The original wound only damaged skin, muscle and my rib cage, but stopped short of my heart (I guess that last part is obvious). So I decided to take advantage of the card and go to a local doctor.

I explained to the doctor that I was having some pain in the center of my chest, so he had me take off my shirt. I have two other gunshot scars and a four inch shrapnel scar within six inches of the wound that was hurting: all that in addition to a whole lot of smaller shrapnel scars. Anyway, I point to the well healed round scar in the center of my chest and told him that it was hurting right there. Dr. Potatohead didn’t ask me how I got any of those scars. He just asked me how the pain felt, and diagnosed me as having pleurisy. I put my shirt back on and left. That was the last time I ever went to a civilian doctor. I decided that day that as I only get treated for the residuals of my wounds, I only want to see doctors that are familiar with the residuals of combat wounds.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, I want my doctors to consider that it just might be a duck. Dr. Potatohead would probably think it’s a zebra.

But just like the rest of the Viet Nam veterans, I am getting old. So when I start having age related problems I probably would prefer a system as Scout laid out where I went to the doctors of my choice for those problems. Hmmmm, but I have seen a number of old guys at VA medical facilities.

Robert