Admit it, you probably know very little about the VA, but think they provide crappy healthcare. Please, I mean I have often had folks say, “you’re a vet, how can you stand to go to that crappy hospital?” Short answer, the VA I go to and others I have been to provide honest and quality care at the provider level. Providers who don’t deal well with veterans leave the system, because who wants to work with a population of salty, cranky, government mistrusting folks. Well, I know a few, that no matter what comes out of Mr. Salty’s mouth today, they will always come back tomorrow. If they are smart, they will tell Mr. Salty to change his ‘tude. The funny part is, most vets respect that, they respect the honest care that they receive. They will come back to nursing units months later to say hi to that provider. The sad part is they can’t help everyone. This story talks about someone ending their life at a VA facility. In short:

On Dec. 10, retired Marine Col. Jim Turner put on his dress uniform and medals and drove to the Bay Pines Department of Veterans Affairs complex. He got out of his truck, sat down on top of his military records and took his own life with a rifle.

Aside from leaving behind grieving family and friends, Turner, 55, of Belleair Bluffs, left behind a suicide note that blasted the VA for what he said was its failure to help him.

“I bet if you look at the 22 suicides a day you will see VA screwed up in 90%,” wrote Turner, who was well-known and well-respected in military circles. “I did 20+ years, had PTSD and still had to pay over $1,000 a month health care.”

We have no idea what exactly happened. The VA can’t say anything about it, and that is fine. You don’t always need to know everything, Mrs. Kravitz. We know he was having trouble and he blamed the VA. I won’t judge right or wrong here, nor should you.

There is a constant effort to make the VA private, ya know, by those folks that win popularity contests that get loads of cash to help them make up their minds on legislation. They use these stories to make a case for private take over. Well, who benefits? Odds are, not the veterans. The simple fact is the government is going to end up paying someone, why not use the infrastructure in place. Almost the same day, I saw the piece on the suicide, a big story hit here.

One way to meet that demand is by using more of the purchased care options made available by the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act.

But the report also noted that while VA’s use of purchased care is growing, it’s often acquired through complex means and without a clear strategy for its use.

This almost admits that despite the call to privatize, none of these folks has a clear plan to deal with the complex veteran care. The article is from the federal times and has links to the Rand study on the website. So, why do vets bitch? The age-old expression is, “A happy soldier is a griping soldier.” Most vets trust the VA, so stop believing that hype, especially you Karen.