Memorial Day – Our Veterans Deserve Good Healthcare
The last Monday in May is Memorial Day, and, contrary to the current tradition, it is not only a holiday to have a plethora of Memorial Day sales. It’s a day to honor those who served and those who died serving in our nation’s armed forces. Its origin goes back to the civil war and, unfortunately, we’ve had multiple wars since then that have cost the lives of many brave men and women. It is a time when I reflect on those I served with during my service in the Air Force.
Friendships you establish in the military remain strong over the years. I still get together every other year with six Air Force friends that I served with in the 1970s. During that time, I lost good friends in two separate aircraft accidents, and I recognize their bravery as they gave their lives as they strived to keep our military strong. It was an inherently dangerous proposition to fly a 450,000-pound B-52 at 450 mph at 400 feet off the ground for a couple of hours. Knowing that your fellow crew members would do their job and keep you safe was one way that cemented this friendship. I remember those that I served with and all those that served and died for our country more than once a year, but Memorial Day is a time for me to pay a special tribute to those who served.
One of the ways our nation can honor our veterans is providing them an efficient and accessible healthcare system. TRICARE is the insurance that covers qualifying veterans and TRICARE For Life is available for those who qualify for Medicare Part A and Part B. These two programs work in concert to serve older veterans. I spent 8 years in the service, so I didn’t qualify for TRICARE or TRICARE For Life but I now qualify for some health benefits through some service acquired disabilities. In my years working on public policies for seniors, I have advocated with other veteran groups and have understood the problems that veterans have faced as they work to gain access to healthcare. I make it a point whenever I get together with vets to ask them how their healthcare is working. I must say that there have been improvements. For years, the care provided to older veterans was lacking and varied greatly from region to region within the U.S. It seemed that the providers were understaffed and underfinanced. The waiting periods for appointments and to receive needed care were long. It’s my opinion that the discovery of the impact that Agent Orange had on those who served in Vietnam and the lack of recognition that our country gave to the veterans of that war spurred our lawmakers on to correct this lack of good healthcare for our veterans.
For instance, they instituted regulations that set minimum standards of care for every VA region. They increased the financing for the veteran programs so that there were many more service providers and brought the waiting times down. One of the biggest barriers to access was the lack of a sufficient number of VA facilities. It caused many patients to drive hundreds of miles to get treated. Legislation was passed that allowed the VA to pay local care providers if access to a VA facility was more than 40 miles away. This has had a huge positive impact on veterans’ access to care, especially for those who live in rural areas.
There is still more that needs to be done. The number of drugs that are available (their formulary) through the VA has historically been much smaller than under Medicare’s prescription drug program, Medicare Part D. It is the reason that a substantial percentage of veterans also sign up and pay for Medicare Part D. It was this fact that always made me wonder why some legislators lobbied to adopt the VA formulary when discussing ways to save money. Why would they want to adopt a program that forced patients to go outside of it to get the medicines they need and that their doctor prescribed? Expanding their formulary is one place where the VA could improve their care.
There is much talk these days of eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the government. I’ve always been against any regulation or legislation that put the government between a patient and their doctor. While I am not sure how the current approach to reducing the cost of government will all work out -- and I will admit that I have some great ideas about how we could accomplish this task in a less obtrusive and disruptive way--I welcome the attempt to reduce the size and cost of our government. What I don’t want to do is throw the baby of innovation and preventative care out with the bathwater of savings. It is shortsighted to cut back the ability of programs like VA healthcare to treat health problems before they become serious, complicated, and costly long-term morbidities.
As the administration looks for ways to reduce the cost of government, I hope they recognize the worth of innovation, of preventative care, of care for those who are financially strapped, and of to care for those who have served our country in the military. It is something we should be talking about on this coming Memorial Day.
Best, Thair