To your health and hearths, vets! SUPPORT the TROOPS!!!!
"Iraq veteran healthcare could top $650b; Doctors group warns possible crisis looming" by Bryan Bender/Boston Globe November 9, 2007
WASHINGTON - A group of noted physicians predicted yesterday that healthcare for Iraq veterans could top $650 billion, another warning of a looming social crisis as thousands of veterans struggle with mental and physical disabilities and other disruptions to family life.
The study by Physicians for Social Responsibility, titled "Shock and Awe Hits Home," marked the first attempt to isolate the financial costs of "the wide-ranging traumatic mental and social effects of the Iraq war."
The liberal group, which shared the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, estimated that the long-term financial burden to care for a new generation of veterans will far outstrip the amount of money spent on combat operations in Iraq.
According to the study, overseen by Dr. Evan Kanter, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at the University of Washington and a staff physician for the Department of Veterans Affairs:
"Providing medical care and disability benefits to veterans will cost far more than is generally being acknowledged. As physicians and healthcare professionals, we are acutely aware of the actual price we are paying in human terms, and we are compelled to bring this to the attention of the Congress and the American people."
Good luck getting through the MSM shit screen, doc!
The estimate was derived by analyzing the current costs of treating debilitating health problems of troops in Iraq, including blast injuries to arms and legs from improvised explosive devices; the historically high instances of traumatic brain injuries; and post-traumatic stress disorder, which the VA believes affects at least one-third of soldiers serving there.
Since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, at least 60,000 US service members have been wounded or become mentally ill from their battlefield experiences.
The analysis assumed that, at the current pace, as many as 2 million men and women will be deployed to Iraq through the end of the conflict.
That # really stands out at you, no, reader? I'm smelling a draft, sure-as-shit!
A veteran without a spouse or dependents who is 100 percent disabled receives about $2,400 per month from the government. Over 50 years, that could total more than $1.4 million. The report said that healthcare costs could go even higher.
It did not account for thousands of civilian contractors serving in Iraq, including more than 1,000 who have filed disability claims with the Department of Labor seeking government compensation. The report came amid other new signs of the growing toll of the war on soldiers and their families.
This war and the liars who started it are a FUCKING ABOMINATION!!!!!!!!
New Defense Department data released yesterday show that thousands of members of the National Guard and Reserve who have returned from deployment have lost their jobs, health insurance, pensions, and other benefits despite federal laws protecting them from being penalized for leaving civilian employment for wartime service.
Yup, SUPPORT the TROOPS, huh?! Where is asshole Bush on this?
He doesn't give a shit about the troops, he only cares about his fucking wars!!!!!!
The data, previously withheld by the Pentagon, was made public at a hearing chaired by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. It shows that nearly 11,000 soldiers have been denied prompt reemployment after leaving civilian jobs for military deployments; more than 22,000 lost seniority and pay; nearly 20,000 had their pensions cut; and nearly 11,000 were denied their previous health insurance benefits.
Un-flipping-fucking believable!
And here asshole is, vetoing bills, sending money around the fucking world, funding Israel to the hilt, and stiffing our veterans -- who he HIDES BEHIND to GET MORE WAR $$$$$$$!
Let's IMPEACH, CONVICT and IMPRISON these shitters, dammit!!!!!!!
Federal law - including the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act - is supposed to protect veterans from workplace discrimination and allow them to seek redress for lost jobs or other benefits.
But Brenda S. Farrell, director of defense capabilities and management at the Government Accountability Office, told Kennedy's panel yesterday that "no single agency is responsible for maintaining visibility over the entire complaint resolution process."
I'm so sick of excuses from this shit hole government!!!
When it's someting good for the public, it's the old bullshit shovel!
But when he wants $$$ for his shit wars, well, it's right there!
Indeed, the departments of Labor, Defense, and Justice and the US Office of Special Counsel have responsibility for veterans' employment rights. Many who are eligible are not aware of the government assistance.
Why not?
Twenty-three percent of returning soldiers experiencing employment problems sought help in 2006, according to the results of a government survey released at the hearing. That failure is also signified by new figures that indicate 1 in 4 homeless Americans are veterans, including at least 1,500 who served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Support the Troops, huh? You fucking liars!
The Alliance to End Homelessness, a nonprofit organization, found that 194,254 out of 744,313 homeless people on any given night are veterans. The findings, released yesterday, were based on information from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the US Census Bureau.
The criticism of current veterans' programs crosses partisan lines.
Vets for Freedom, a prowar group, said in a statement yesterday: "Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are still waiting. They are waiting for new healthcare facilities. They are waiting on better post-traumatic stress disorder treatment. They are waiting on research for prosthetic limbs."
Oh, the PRO-WAR group gets the quote?
Well, FUCK THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And FUCK the SHIT MSM, too!!!!!!!!
Un-flipping-fucking-believable!!!
They deserve my scorn!!!
Oh, and about those homeless vets:
"Surge Seen in Number of Homeless Veterans" by ERIK ECKHOLM
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 — More than 400 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have turned up homeless, and the Veterans Affairs Department and aid groups say they are bracing for a new surge in homeless veterans in the years ahead.
Experts who work with veterans say it often takes several years after leaving military service for veterans’ accumulating problems to push them into the streets. But some aid workers say the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans appear to be turning up sooner than the Vietnam veterans did.
Phil Landis, chairman of Veterans Village of San Diego, a residence and counseling center:
“We’re beginning to see, across the country, the first trickle of this generation of warriors in homeless shelters, but we anticipate that it’s going to be a tsunami.”
Yup, but we got BILLIONS for WAR PROFITEERING CORPORATIONS -- and for ISRAEL!!!!!
With more women serving in combat zones, the current wars are already resulting in a higher share of homeless women as well. They have an added risk factor: roughly 40 percent of the hundreds of homeless female veterans of recent wars have said they were sexually assaulted by American soldiers while in the military, officials said.
Pete Dougherty, the V.A.’s director of homeless programs: “Sexual abuse is a risk factor for homelessness.”
But, but, but... I heard war makes you a better person?
Special traits of the current wars may contribute to homelessness, including high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and traumatic brain injury, which can cause unstable behavior and substance abuse, and the long and repeated tours of duty, which can make the reintegration into families and work all the harder.
Frederick Johnson, 37, an Army reservist, slept in abandoned houses shortly after returning to Chester, Pa., from a year in Iraq, where he experienced daily mortar attacks and saw mangled bodies of soldiers and children. He started using crack cocaine and drinking, burning through $6,000 in savings.
Mr. Johnson: “I cut myself off from my family and went from being a pleasant guy to wanting to rip your head off if you looked at me wrong.”
But hey, it was a noble and character-building endeavor, right?
On the street for a year, he finally checked in at a V.A. clinic in Maryland and has struggled with PTSD, depression, and drug and alcohol abuse. The V.A. has provided temporary housing as he starts a new job.
Tracy Jones of the Compass Center, a Seattle agency that has seen a handful of new homeless each month, said she was surprised by “the quickness in which Iraqi Freedom veterans are becoming homeless” compared with the Vietnam era. The availability of meth and crack could lead addicts into rapid downhill spirals, Ms. Jones said.
Poverty and high housing costs also contribute. The National Alliance to End Homelessness in Washington will release a report on Thursday saying that among one million veterans who served after the Sept. 11 attacks, 72,000 are paying more than half their incomes for rent, leaving them highly vulnerable.
Mr. Dougherty of the V.A. said outreach officers, who visit shelters, soup kitchens and parks, had located about 1,500 returnees from Iraq or Afghanistan who seemed at high risk, though many had jobs. More than 400 have entered agency-supported residential programs around the country. No one knows how many others have not made contact with aid agencies.
More than 11 percent of the newly homeless veterans are women, Mr. Dougherty said, compared with 4 percent enrolled in such programs over all.
Veterans have long accounted for a high share of the nation’s homeless. Although they make up 11 percent of the adult population, they make up 26 percent of the homeless on any given day, the National Alliance report calculated.
This is supporting the troops, huh, Bush, you fucking liar!
According to the V.A., some 196,000 veterans of all ages were homeless on any given night in 2006. That represents a decline from about 250,000 a decade back, Mr. Dougherty said, as housing and medical programs grew and older veterans died.
The most troubling face of homelessness has been the chronic cases, those who live in the streets or shelters for more than year. Some 44,000 to 64,000 veterans fit that category, according to the National Alliance study.
On Wednesday, the Bush administration announced what it described as “remarkable progress” for the chronic homeless.
Un-flipping-believable! Shameless! Absolutely shameless!
Alphonso R. Jackson, the secretary of housing and urban development, said a new policy of bringing the long-term homeless directly into housing, backed by supporting services, had put more than 20,000, or about 12 percent, into permanent or transitional homes.
Veterans have been among the beneficiaries, but Mary Cunningham, director of the research institute of the National Alliance and chief author of their report, said the share of supported housing marked for veterans was low.
A collaborative program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the V.A. has developed 1,780 such units. The National Alliance said the number needed to grow by 25,000.
Mr. Dougherty described the large and growing efforts the V.A. was making to prevent homelessness including offering two years of free medical care and identifying psychological and substance abuse problems early.
One obstacle is that many veterans wait too long to seek help.
Mr. Johnson: “I had that pride thing going on, ‘I’m a soldier, I should be better than this.’”
Yeah, it's their fault! Pfffffffttttttttt!
Kent Richardson, 49, who was in the Army from 1976 to 1992 and has flashbacks from the gulf war, said, “when you get out you feel disconnected and alone.”
Mr. Richardson said it took him two years to find a job after leaving the Army. Then he became an alcoholic. He now stays at the Southeast Veteran’s Service Center in Washington, awaiting permanent subsidized housing.
Joe Williams, 53, spent 16 years in the Army and the Navy, including a deeply upsetting assignment in the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the dead from the gulf war were taken for autopsies.
For the past three years Mr. Williams has lived in a bunk bed in a Washington shelter. He was laid off, his car and house were repossessed, and his wife left him. He moved to Georgia, where he lost another job.
Broke and depressed, he walked from Georgia to a V.A. hospital in the Washington area, where schizophrenia was diagnosed. Now, after three years of medication and therapy, he feels ready to start looking for work.
Mr. Williams: “I have a mission I’ve got to accomplish.”
Yup, war is good for everybody, all right!
This is supporting the troops?
This?
This government is worse than any words I ever typed in anger or bitterness!
