The Boerewors Emergency Medicine Chronicles: Really President Obama...this is how you plan to treat your troops?

Thursday, 19 March 2009

Really President Obama...this is how you plan to treat your troops?

The Obama administration is considering a plan to make veterans use private insurance to pay for treatment of combat and service-related injuries.

The proposal would be an about-face on what veterans think is a longstanding pledge to pay for health-care costs that result from their military service.

In a White House meeting Monday, veterans groups apparently failed to persuade President Barack Obama to take the plan off the table.

“Veterans of all generations agree that this proposal is bad for the country and bad for veterans,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

“If the president and the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) want to cut costs, they can start at (ailing insurance giant) AIG, not the VA.”

Under current policy, veterans are responsible for health-care costs that are unrelated to their military service.

Exceptions in some cases can be for veterans without private insurance or who are 100 percent disabled.

Lawmakers on Tuesday "explicitly ruled out" the possibility of enacting President Obama's proposal to have private insurers cover the costs of combat-related injuries for veterans, the Washington Post reports (Scott Tyson, Washington Post, 3/18).

Under the policy, which is included in Obama's fiscal year 2010 budget proposal, the Department of Veterans Affairs would bill health insurers for treatment of injuries and conditions sustained as a result of veterans' military service.

Currently, VA covers those costs and bills health insurers only for treatment for conditions unrelated to veterans' military service.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220571&title=that-cant-be-right-veterans

http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/17662

http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics/story/1090250.html

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What I do and where I do it

Naturally...naturally... this blog is a complete work of fiction.Of course it is... None of the people (or their relatives) or any apparent colleague or indeed any event mentioned within the blog, exist, or have ever existed. Really..no..really...Honestly..trust me..*right*

If you think that you recognise yourself, -particularly if you are a clinician or an ex-girlfriend-, then you have a narcissistic personality disorder.

However if any part was true then the introduction might read something like this:-
I work as an autonomous Emergency Nurse Practitoner serving a charming English seaside town called Little-Ghetto-on-Sea, on the East coast, closer in fact to Europe than to London.
We treat a wide range of minor illness and injury , with admitting privileges to St Vulva's, the main academic hospital some 20 miles away .
It is apparently one of the UK's most densely populated city's...and fits Littlejohn's discription in the Daily Mail when he says,"most British seaside towns are run-down dole-claimant dormitories,which seem to take a perverse delight in driving people away through a combination of rip-off prices , tatty boarding houses and disgusting food and draconian parking regimes" . It often feels as if it is the setting for 'Little Britian' which most foreign readers will know is more social commentary than cutting-edge comedy.Indeed most of the male patients are typically shaven headed pierced,inked,dirty-fingered,dull eyed ,baseball-cap wearing, unemployed smokers with prodigious drinking skills. The women have a limited vocabularly, ranging from "innit" to "my (human) rights" with not much else inbetween.Invariably they have several children from different consorts (love that word!) and walk through the town talking on their cell phones and ignoring their children.There are few vegetarians and even fewer graduates.

DISCLAIMER

This site is for entertainment purposes only.

Any patient interactions or cases that are posted here are not based upon any single person ,living or dead ;or any specific event.

Conversations in quotes and remarks that appear to be quoted verbatim are not necessairly true. All patient details are changed to make identifying them impossible, far exceeding the minimum standards for de-identification of patient information.

However , occasionally , ECG strips ,photographs,or x-ray images that are of clinical interest are posted and are subject to that particular patient having given me written permission for the image to be published;and no original NHS images or materials are used,removed or uploaded from any of the hospitals in which I work.

Under no circumstances should any reader assume or think that any nursing or medical advice is being dispensed.

No nurse/patient relationship,- or indeed any theraputic relationship of any kind-,will be established by you reading and/or commenting upon this blog.