The "PAST" Determines The "FUTURE"!

[dotmcentire]

Thanks Super,
I appreciate your taking the time to make a reply. I was feeling guilty about my post and that's why I made the apology (obviously). I really shouldn't have called them names even though, for the most part, it's true.

Nevertheless, it's not very intelligent to call names - anyone can do that, right? Facts speak louder than name calling, and one who resorts to name calling is usually losing the debate.

My mother used to tell me that persons who have low intelligence are the ones who resort to using vulgar language. I don't necessarily believe that, but it's stayed with me all these years so I try to keep my language clean. I don't want to seem to have a lower IQ than I already have. LOL

Anyway, thanks again...
Dot

[Gimpy]

Beware of "wolves" in "sheeps" clothing.

If your worried about a "Godless agenda" then you need look no further than the original post and comprehend it's actual indefensable content.

Do YOU think God would approve of sending our beloved young men & women into harms way then have someone deny them adequate care afterwards???

[SuperScout]

And just when has "adequate care" ever been present regarding our armed forces? Gimpy, you try to peddle a line of hatred and bile that this "inadequacy" was invented by Republicans, and made worse by intentions by GWB. Was there adequate care for our warriors, starting at Valley Forge and proceeding to the present day? How does any government or a military ever accurately predict the number of wounded or the percentage of those requiring intensive care? If the VA health care system is the best in the world, as you claim, how did it get that way with all the shortages, mismanagement, stealth reallocations of funds, and other financial slight of hands that you claim?

Dot: if it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, and lays duck egss, chances are it isn't an alligator. A political party that endorses abortion on demand, sides with the ACLU on its drive to oust the Boy Scouts from schools and every other public place, and sides with judges who seek to deny our Judeo-Christian heritage has a godless agenda indeed. That's the wolf in sheep's clothing.

[dotmcentire]

Hello Gimpy,
First, I would like to commend you on your concern for our military. I believe you think you have their best interest at heart. Our military is made up of the very best America has to offer (always has been). We are fortunate indeed to have the type of heroes we have who are willing to die for a cause our country deems important.

My seventeen year old nephew spent a year in Iraq - he celebrated his eighteenth birthday there while serving in the army. My eighteen year old grandson, who is a marine, will most likely be sent there soon. Justin is strong in his belief about why he will be going to Iraq and it bothers him to hear democrats saying it's for an unjust cause. He sees it as an important job and one that needs to be completed. Now, I love this young man as my own son. He has spent many summers here with us and we are so very proud of him. Of course, I'm not willing to see his life sacrificed, but we are willing to allow him in harms way for the sake of what is the right thing to do! He's a hero because he will do whatever his president and country requires him to do.

Now, having said all that, I feel it's very important to address your two part question about how God "feels" about our country sending young men and women into harms way and then denying them adequate care afterwards.

First of all, God's word says for us to "obey those in authority" (in all things) unless those in authority are asking us to disobey God's law. Only then do we have the right to disobey.

Here's how it works: God loves individually (He's no respecter of persons) and He disciplines according to each person's sin. He also punishes/rewards nations and leaders for their decisions. If America (as a whole) continues to commit sins against God (without repentance), He will punish America as a whole. Christians as well as non-believers will come under this just punishment. That doesn't mean God is personally punishing a Christian for things they had no control over. It rains on the just and the unjust alike. Besides that, God doesn't punish His own - He disciplines and there is a great difference between the two.

When our country was in the middle of the "War Between The States" (or the "Civil War" as some mistakenly call it) there were Christians on both sides killing each other. If one Christian kills another during war will God punish the one who killed? No, and the reason is because both Christians were obeying those in authority and fighting for what they believed was a "just" war. So, to answer the first part of your question... Yes, God does expect our young heroes to go to Iraq, or wherever, to do what their country calls for them to do.

As far as how God "feels" about our country denying our heroes adequate care when they return. I personally believe God hates the injustice of our military being denied adequate care. God hates injustice period! However, when we learn to trust God for, and in all things we can depend on His mercy and care. Now, that doesn't mean a Christian will not suffer from injustice, what it means is God will use the injustice for our good. What we are here for is to glorify God and to become more Christ-like. Therefore, to suffer an injustice while trusting God for the outcome is something all Christians need to do.

I hope I've answered your question adequately. There isn't enough time for me to detail how God works in our lives for our good when we are in the right, and especially when we are in the wrong.

One last thought, I detest those who are willing to give the enemy encouragement to continue their war on us. That, to me, is the greatest sin against our military and our country! Speaking on behalf of those whom I love in the military I say, "Shut up and sit down!" Stop putting my loved ones in more harms way by your words!

Thank you for asking your question, Gimpy, it has allowed me to tell you about my grandson and nephew who are "real" heroes, amen?

God bless America! God bless those willing to die for their country!
Dot

Check out my friend's poem:
http://www.geocities.com/poetryfromh...yintheusa.html

[dotmcentire]

I want to add this email I received - I believe Mark Polk says it so much better than I could.


Jan 7, 2006
Democrats are stuck in political quagmire
Mark Polk


The Democrats are stuck. They are stuck in the past and stuck in their own mindless muck.

Hopelessly mired in adverse history, haunted by the ghost of Vietnam past, party leaders Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Jack Reed, John Conyers, Barbara Boxer, Patrick Leahy, Barbara Lee, Jay Rockefeller, Richard Durbin, Jerrold Nadler, Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Clinton refuse to say anything positive about our troop's mission and country's effort in the Middle East. For them, bad news is good news. The more there is, the better it is.

And who's the most critical and outspoken? Why of course, it's none other than Ted Kennedy out front carrying the inflammatory torch. He loves using the famous Vietnam-era word "quagmire" to describe our mission.

Interestingly, no one heard him using that reference describing his big brother's actions when planes filled with body bags of dead American soldiers killed in Vietnam were being flown home.

Nor did anyone hear a peep from Kennedy when Lyndon Baines Johnson was ordering bombs dropped by the hundreds of thousands.

While Kennedy closed his eyes, celebrated Democrat presidents created the mud hole that got the United States stuck in Vietnam. It was a very deep hole. While John F. Kennedy and Johnson dug, 32,053 American soldiers got killed and were buried in it.

A sure way to defeat is to be told constantly the task at hand cannot be done. Eighty-two percent of Vietnam veterans who saw heavy combat strongly believe that the war was lost because of a lack of political will (http://community-2.webtv.net/poetspa...ans/page2.html).

Liberals are taking us down the same old memory lane today because they ignore the hard lesson that was learned in the failed mission in Southeast Asia.

If the Democrats get their way and we walk away losers again, the United States will find itself 0 and 2 and down for the count in the wars of will.

What would be worse, the live action war we are involved in over there will relocate back here. If this happens, the crazy thing is that the criticism won't stop. It will certainly continue, but in a different vein. This time around it won't be about the fighting. And it won't be about the battles or the carnage it leaves.

No, it will be about some other nonsense like the unfairness shown to our enemies in battle because we hold an unfriendly, hostile home field advantage.

Are these inane, bizarre, preposterous thoughts? I don't think so. This is precisely the kind of off-the-wall assessment liberal leaders are identified with today. The kind of judgment that will end up getting more Americans killed on any battleground we could find ourselves on anywhere else in the world.

Rational, reasonable and responsible leadership is required in the job to direct the country's war on terrorism to keep it where it is. Irrational, unreasonable and irresponsible Democrats are not up to the job and, therefore, should not apply.



And I say, Amen!
Dot

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[Arrow]

Scout...

I too have asked the questionhow can the VA bea world class medical system while having so many problems. I have witnessed first hand some of the best and some of the worst care in the world in VA hospitals.These articles speak directly to that scenario and how things are changing.Whistleblowers are no longer punished as they were.Computerizing all the records ishelping tremendously.We'll see how this all washes out and nothing can be taken for granted.If they stay the course we will have what our war fighters deserve; the best the country can offer themin health care.

U.S. NEWS & World Report

Washington Monthly

[SuperScout]

You can probably feel it, but you've been in my thoughts alot recently, so it's good to see you posting again. I too have long advocated the very best for our warriors, both during and after their service. My paradigm is not "Oh, my Gawd, the sky is continually falling," so I may not appear as focused (if that's the operative word) or as rabid (a word that may have more accuracy), but nevertheless, am just as dedicated toward the aforementioned end as anyone else. Of particular import is that we do whatever it takes to maintain and even enhance the morale of our warriors, not denegrate their noble efforts. I've been down that morbid road paved by the likes of the Kennedys and Pelosis of this world, and it ain't good or useful. It is a cruel hoax to say "I support the troops" and yet make other statements that impugn their intelligence, their purpose and their very mission.

[reconeil]

Steered clear of this thread since life's too short,
and refuse reading yardage of typical canned
and overly echoed rhetoric from Gimpy and/or any other:
"Democrats/Socialists/Leftists posing as Liberals", anyway.

Regardless, and since you and Gimpy are debating
mean Bush and Veteran Monies, I thought you might
be interested knowing about a letter received from
The VA today? Such does sort-of prove your honesty
and makes much of what Gimpy and like state, to be
quite suspect,...AT BEST.

Was notified about my monthly Disability Increase.
Was the single HIGHEST monthly increase received
in about 47 YEARS.

Thank You President Bush & The American Taxpayer.

Neil

[Gimpy]

I stay away fer a couple of days and LOOK what happens!

A perfectly good and informative post about the dastardly and underhanded behavior of the current administrations LACK of adequate attention and inadequate funding of the Department of Veterans Affairs turns into a 'bashing' of the 'Dems' and 'Liberals'????

Why am I not surprised!................

First, I want to thank Arrow for her honest and informative post about the TRUTH as it happens to be detailed in the two articles she has provided. Thanks Sis.

Now, if we can JUST get some folks around here (and elsewhere) to comprehend and ADMIT this truth, the better off we'll all be.

I've taken the liberty of copying a few portions of those articles below. Hopefully this will help eliminate any further DISinformation and MISinformation being proclaimed by those among us with nothing better to do than IGNORE THE FACTS!

From U.S. News & World Report Magazine:

"Recent evidence shows [that care at the VA system] is at least as good as, if not better," he says, than care delivered elsewhere. In the 1990s, for example, the VA began using a new way--since adopted by the American College of Surgeons--to evaluate surgical quality. It enabled VA surgeons to reduce postoperative deaths by 27 percent and post-surgical complications by 45 percent. Recently published studies have found that the VA rates much better than Medicare fee-for-service providers in 11 basic measures of quality, such as regular mammograms and counseling for smokers. Late last year, the Annals of Internal Medicine published a study showing that the VA had "substantially better quality of care" than other providers in many of nearly 350 indicators of quality, such as screening and treating depression, diabetes, and hypertension.

"evidence of a seismic shift, brought about not by high-tech breakthroughs but by a fundamental change in VA culture. A new emphasis, on patient safety and on a work ethic that stresses constant examination of the processes and procedures that go into caregiving, arrived in 1994 when Kenneth Kizer, former director of California's Department of Health Services, was tapped to run the VA health empire. His mission, as he saw it, was to remake the unwieldy system into one of the world's safest and finest. Kizer started holding doctors, administrators, and managers directly accountable for the quality of their patient care, linking, for example, how many heart-attack patients received recommended beta blockers and aspirin to job reviews. And the performance for each facility was made public, which turned out to be a major motivator. "People competed like hell," says Kizer, now president of the nonprofit National Quality Forum, which develops national standards for assessing the quality of healthcare.

Kizer was immersed in studies of patient safety years before the Institute of Medicine's jolting report in 1999 of hospital errors that kill tens of thousands of patients. To cultivate a "culture of safety" at the VA, he created a National Center for Patient Safety, and to head it up he brought in James Bagian, a former astronaut who had investigated the space shuttle Challenger accident for NASA.


Bagian's hire was "one of the smartest things [Kizer] did," says Leape. Both an engineer and physician, Bagian brought to the VA unique skills and a zealous commitment to safety. "

Bagian's greatest challenge was shifting the attitudes of VA staffers. Few people reported a gaffe, for fear that they or the person who made it would suffer. "The VA had the most punitive, hardest culture I had ever seen," says Kizer; he and Bagian wanted to change the VA's punishment-oriented ways to an open, nonpunitive environment. But the staff didn't begin to respond until top managers showed they were serious. In the new VA, for example, managers could be fired, fined, and even jailed for retaliating against workers who file mistake reports.

And other hospitals have noticed. Jennifer Daley, chief medical officer and senior vice president of clinical quality at Tenet Healthcare Corp., is using the VA as a blueprint to improve performance at the nation's second-largest for-profit hospital operator.

######


From Washington Monthly:

By the mid-1990s, the reputation of veterans hospitals had sunk so low that conservatives routinely used their example as a kind of reductio ad absurdum critique of any move toward ?socialized medicine.? Here, for instance, is Jarret B. Wollstein, a right-wing activist/author, railing against the Clinton health-care plan in 1994: ?To see the future of health care in America for you and your children under Clinton's plan,? Wollstein warned, ?just visit any Veterans Administration hospital. You'll find filthy conditions, shortages of everything, and treatment bordering on barbarism.?

And so it goes today. If the debate is over health-care reform, it won't be long before some free-market conservative will jump up and say that the sorry shape of the nation's veterans hospitals just proves what happens when government gets into the health-care business. And if he's a true believer, he'll then probably go on to suggest, quoting William Safire and other free marketers, that the government should just shut down the whole miserable system and provide veterans with health-care vouchers.

Yet here's a curious fact that few conservatives or liberals know. Who do you think receives higher-quality health care. Medicare patients who are free to pick their own doctors and specialists? Or aging veterans stuck in those presumably filthy VA hospitals with their antiquated equipment, uncaring administrators, and incompetent staff? An answer came in 2003, when the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a study that compared veterans health facilities on 11 measures of quality with fee-for-service Medicare. On all 11 measures, the quality of care in veterans facilities proved to be ?significantly better.?


Here's another curious fact. The Annals of Internal Medicine recently published a study that compared veterans health facilities with commercial managed-care systems in their treatment of diabetes patients. In seven out of seven measures of quality, the VA provided better care. It gets stranger. Pushed by large employers who are eager to know what they are buying when they purchase health care for their employees, an outfit called the National Committee for Quality Assurance today ranks health-care plans on 17 different performance measures. These include how well the plans manage high blood pressure or how precisely they adhere to standard protocols of evidence-based medicine such as prescribing beta blockers for patients recovering from a heart attack. Winning NCQA's seal of approval is the gold standard in the health-care industry. And who do you suppose this year's winner is: Johns Hopkins? Mayo Clinic? Massachusetts General? Nope. In every single category, the VHA system outperforms the highest rated non-VHA hospitals.


Not convinced? Consider what vets themselves think. Sure, it's not hard to find vets who complain about difficulties in establishing eligibility. Many are outraged that the Bush administration has decided to deny previously promised health-care benefits to veterans who don't have service-related illnesses or who can't meet a strict means test. Yet these grievances are about access to the system, not about the quality of care received by those who get in. Veterans groups tenaciously defend the VHA and applaud its turnaround . ?The quality of care is outstanding,? says Peter Gayton, deputy director for veterans affairs and rehabilitation at the American Legion. In the latest independent survey, 81 percent of VHA hospital patients express satisfaction with the care they receive, compared to 77 percent of Medicare and Medicaid patients.


Outside experts agree that the VHA has become an industry leader in its safety and quality measures. Dr. Donald M. Berwick, president of the Institute for Health Care Improvement and one of the nation's top health-care quality experts, praises the VHA's information technology as ?spectacular .? The venerable Institute of Medicine notes that the VHA's ?integrated health information system, including its framework for using performance measures to improve quality, is considered one of the best in the nation.?

If this gives you cognitive dissonance, it should. The story of how and why the VHA became the benchmark for quality medicine in the United States suggests that much of what we think we know about health care and medical economics is just wrong. It's natural to believe that more competition and consumer choice in health care would lead to greater quality and lower costs, because in almost every other realm, it does. That's why the Bush administration?which has been promoting greater use of information technology and other quality improvement in health care?also wants to give individuals new tax-free ?health savings accounts? and high-deductible insurance plans. Together, these measures are supposed to encourage patients to do more comparison shopping and haggling with their doctors; therefore, they create more market discipline in the system.

But when it comes to health care, it's a government bureaucracy that's setting the standard for maintaining best practices while reducing costs, and it's the private sector that's lagging in quality. That unexpected reality needs examining if we're to have any hope of understanding what's wrong with America's health-care system and how to fix it. It turns out that precisely because the VHA is a big, government-run system that has nearly a lifetime relationship with its patients, it has incentives for investing in quality and keeping its patients well?incentives that are lacking in for-profit medicine.

Hitting bottom


By the mid-1990s, the veterans health-care system was in deep crisis. A quarter of its hospital beds were empty. Government audits showed that many VHA surgeons had gone a year without picking up a scalpel. The population of veterans was falling sharply, as aging World War II and Korean War vets began to pass away. At the same time, a mass migration of veterans from the Snowbelt to the Sunbelt overwhelmed hospitals in places such as Tampa with new patients, while those in places such as Pittsburgh had wards of empty beds.

Serious voices called for simply dismantling the VA system. Richard Cogan, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, told The New York Times in 1994: ?The real question is whether there should be a veterans health care system at all.? At a time when the other health-care systems were expanding outpatient clinics, the VHA still required hospital stays for routine operations like cataract surgery. A patient couldn't even receive a pair of crutches without checking in. Its management system was so ossified and top-down that permission for such trivial expenditures as $9.82 for a computer cable had to be approved in Washington at the highest levels of the bureaucracy.

So, it may have been politics as usual that kept the floundering veterans health-care system going. Yet behind the scenes, a few key players within the VHA had begun to look at ways in which the system might heal itself. Chief among them was Kenneth W. Kizer, who in 1994 had become VHA's undersecretary for health, or, in effect, the system's CEO.

A physician trained in emergency medicine and public health, Kizer was an outsider who immediately started upending the VHA's entrenched bureaucracy. He oversaw a radical downsizing and decentralization of management power, implemented pay-for-performance contracts with top executives, and won the right to fire incompetent doctors. He and his team also began to transform the VHA from an acute care, hospital-based system into one that put far more resources into primary care and outpatient services for the growing number of aging veterans beset by chronic conditions.


By 1998, Kizer's shake-up of the VHA's operating system was already earning him management guru status in an era in which management gurus were practically demigods. His story appeared that year in a book titled Straight from the CEO: The World's Top Business Leaders Reveal Ideas That Every Manager Can Use published by Price Waterhouse and Simon & Schuster. Yet the most dramatic transformation of the VHA didn't just involve such trendy, 1990s ideas as downsizing and reengineering. It also involved an obsession with systematically improving quality and safety that to this day is still largely lacking throughout the rest of the private health-care system.


Why care about quality?

Here's one big reason. As Lawrence P. Casalino, a professor of public health at the University of Chicago, puts it, ?The U.S. medical market as presently constituted simply does not provide a strong business case for quality.?


As the health-care crisis worsens, and as more become aware of how dangerous and unscientific most of the U.S. health-care system is, maybe we will find a way to get our minds around these strange truths. Many Americans still believe that the U.S. health-care system is the best in the world, and that its only major problems are that it costs too much and leaves too many people uninsured. But the fact remains that Americans live shorter lives, with more disabilities, than people in countries that spend barely half as much per person on health care. Pouring more money into the current system won't change that. Nor will making the current system even more fragmented and driven by short-term profit motives. But learning from the lesson offered by the veterans health system could point the way to an all-American solution.

###END###


And, all the 'Clinton bashers & Dem bashers' need to be aware that it WAS Clinton who had the insight and foresight to HIRE Dr. Kenneth Kiser to begin with and put in place the mindset that the VA could become a "WORLD CLASS" health care system.

This current 'bunch' of misfits at the TOP of the VA have absolutely NO EXPERIENCE and obviously NO INTENT to do much to help maintain or improve the system as it has been under the previous 'watch'!


AND THAT"S A FACT...........JACK!

[Arrow]

Scout....

It would never ever cross my mind that you would want anything but the best of everything for your own and those that are with them now and after they come home. I'm sure you know this but just to say it out loud for the rest of the world; you'll never hear this girl say I support the troops but not their mission.

Thank you for thinking of me lately Scout. My doc increased my BP meds yesterday so it's probably a good thing for me to come to this forum only occasionally. God Bless you and yours and keep them safe. Sis

The rest of my post is just thinking out loud...

The only people that really know if their mission is a worthy one are those that are on the ground fightingand laying their life on the line. They are courageous,well educated, well trained,volunteers, and they know what's up. As every generation of warriors that came before them when they come home and hang up their shield they won't be shy about telling us what went wrong and what went right.Those with internet access are using it toblog directly from a combat zoneand circumvent themain stream media (MSM)to have their voices heard. As a group they are none to pleased with what they see as a cut and run policy and really resent having their experience and their fight compared to any other that has gone on before. They expect us to back them and their mission because they are proud of what they have accomplished. I'm just passing on information because I trust them, have a deep respect for their intelligence, and their abilities.

At the same time I believe we have a responsibility to keep all politicians on the hot seat in regard to their needs in the field and when they come home.Why not have the attitude that we can alwaysdo better for our warriors while they are in the field and when they come home.Not oneof you that have put on the uniform and served honorably with the willingness to risk life and limb should be treated as though "the people" are doing you a favor by caring for you. It's not you that owe us but we owe you.

Again I've seen the best and the worst of VA hospitals through administrations that hailed from both sides of the isle so I'm not inclined to trot one or the other out and laud their accomplishments without saying they owe it to our veterans to do better!

Arrow>>>>>>