Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
MIKE PAPANTONIO: Welcome back to Ring of Fire, I'm Mike Papantonio. America's military veterans
are facing a crisis when it comes to access to quality healthcare, and the fight for access
to healthcare is just one of the many struggles facing our veterans. I have attorney Howard
Nations with me now to talk about the dismal treatment that our military veterans receive.
Howard, we saw the Bush Administration cut payments to spouses, cut tax cuts for disabled
veterans, they removed those tax cuts. They actually had Walter Reed Hospital so dysfunctional
that there was no way that anybody could get any real care there. They had roaches, they
had broken equipment, they didn't have enough doctors, they denied cost of living increases
to the vets, that was all during the Bush administration, during those years that George
Bush was telling people that they need to go fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if they
do, America will take care of them. And now we see the story's not much better with Obama.
HOWARD NATIONS: Well, Mike, what we're seeing is the long-term effect of the Bush policies,
because now we have an absolutely ridiculous situation in the VA backlog. First time applicants
for care and compensation are waiting as long as 600 days, 20 months, to get their beginning
of their care and compensation. Now, the VA claimed it was 272 days, but when the Inspector
General checked into it, they found it was closer to 600 days. Despite a 40 percent increase
in the budget, we're still having only 300 new claims handlers on the payroll to handle
these claims. PAPANTONIO: Howard, let me ask you, the sequester
hasn't even taken hold yet. In other words, all of these Republicans beating on their
chests, by golly, we're going to let sequester take place, I think of Jeff Miller right here
in north Florida, he is supposed to be the veteran's guy, now he's out there saying,
oh my god, how horrible this is that veterans are not getting proper care, but look at what
he did in regard to sequester, look at what all these Republicans did in regard to sequester,
and now they're back home and they're having to talk to their constituents and say, well,
oh yeah, I'm sorry, you're guy can't get medical care, it's bad, isn't Howard?
NATIONS: It's ridiculous. It's hard to believe that 95 percent of claims in the VA are still
handled on paper, despite a 40 percent in the budget in this day and age. That's absolutely
ridiculous. PAPANTONIO: Well, let me ask you something.
Many times, we see corporations hold their money. We'll see an insurance company, they
know they're supposed to pay the claim, they hold the money because they make interest
on the claim, we're seeing it with BP right now on the gulf coast, they're not paying
claims because they're holding on to money, we're one of the few firms that are able to
even get them to pay. So if they hold money, then they actually make money on the interest
of the money that they're holding. So it's almost the same analysis here. You've got
a Federal government who simply isn't paying claims. They're not even processing claims.
It's not that they're just dysfunctional, there's a design here, isn't there, Howard?
NATIONS: Well, there's a design, and it is motivated by finances. But the effect of this
is unbelievable on veterans. For example, we had a case in Texas not that long ago where
a 22 year old young veteran who had severe back pain and as a result of an injury he
got in Iraq. He went to the doctor and he was told that -- he called the doctor, and
he had a six week wait, just to even see a doctor. He was in so much pain, he went out
on the open market without a prescription and bought Oxycodone to relieve his pain,
he ended up dying from an overdose. We're creating drug addicts at an exponential rate
among our veterans, and it is absolutely ridiculous. PAPANTONIO: We saw the Bush administration
do everything they could to make sure that they did not pay veterans for posttraumatic
stress disorder. We saw it, every week there was another story about the Bush administration
trying to stop those payments. Are we seeing anything better with the Obama administration
where it comes to veterans? NATIONS: We're really not. The Veteran's Administration
claim that they were getting the first time applicants a complete mental evaluation timely.
The Inspector General followed up on that and said, no, it's just simply not occurring
timely, and the result is that you've got major problems with PTSD, and the PTSD patients
are the ones that are most susceptible to the drug addiction. And what they're doing
is they're giving them opioids and they're becoming drug addicted as a result of it,
because you've got a combination of young males, primarily and opiates, and it's an
addictive combination, and the result is, now, this is shameful. The result is, the
number of suicides and deaths from overdose or drugs or from the wrong combination of
drugs among our veterans who are back home, not the ones over there, the ones that are
back home, is outrageous. PAPANTONIO: How substantial is the number
of increases in suicides when we compare these wars to past wars?
NATIONS: Well, it's an exponential growth over past wars, and it's also the number of
suicides among PTSD patients is the highest. Suicides and the wrong combinations or the
overdose. PAPANTONIO: But what is it that this administration
is doing about that? What are we seeing in, about 30 seconds?
NATIONS: Well, first of all we have a complete failure to get the proper mental evaluation
that's needed when the claims are first made, and secondly, the people who are being treated
for PTSD are being treated primarily for the pain with the opioids, and they're not getting
the mental treatment they need. They're not getting the psychiatric care, they're not
getting the type of relief that is designed for PTSD, they simply put them on opioids
-- PAPANTONIO: Howard, sounds like there's no
blue sky here. Howard Nations, follow this story, let's do it again, it's an important
story. We ask our people to go out there and fight on the battlefield, and when they come
home, they're going to be taken care of. That just is not the case here. Howard Nations,
thanks for joining us.