New Doubts About Health Care for US War Vets
SAN FRANCISCO - About 300,000 U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or major depression. Another 320,000 veterans likely suffer from traumatic brain injury (TBI), a type of physical brain damage often caused by explosions from roadside bombs.
These shocking statistics are the results of a study by the RAND Corporation, a leading think tank with close ties to the Pentagon. The group says its study, titled “Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery,” represents the first large-scale, nongovernmental assessment of the psychological and cognitive needs of military service members who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past six years.
Researches found only about half of veterans wounded in this way are receiving treatment from their government. RAND concluded that only 53 percent of veterans with a mental injury had seen a physician or health care provider.
The gap was even higher for traumatic brain injury.
“Fifty-seven percent of those who reported experiencing a probable TBI were never evaluated by a physician for a brain injury,” the study said.
Veterans’ groups were not surprised by RAND’s findings.
“This research confirms what we have been hearing anecdotally for years, that for too many troops, quality health care is inaccessible. As the findings highlight, this crisis is problematic for individual service members and for the country as a whole,” said Paul Rieckhoff of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
According to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), about 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have received health care from the VA system — about 120,000 for mental injuries. Those statistics appear to be consistent with the RAND Corporation study, confirming more than half the American service personnel wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have slipped through the cracks.
“The VA needs aggressive, pro-veteran leaders; more additional funding for staff, office space, and for screening and treatment equipment,” Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense told OneWorld. “The VA needs more streamlined policies so that veterans don’t need to fill out a 20-page form in order to get care.”
Last July, Sullivan’s organization filed a federal class action lawsuit against the VA, accusing the agency of failing to provide Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with the medical care and disability payments they were promised in exchange for their service.
The case goes to trial today.
Sullivan said his organization decided to file suit when it became clear the agency wouldn’t take action on its own. Before helping to found Veterans for Common Sense, Sullivan monitored disability claims for the VA. In 2006, he resigned in protest.
“In 2005, while working at VA, I briefed senior VA political leaders that VA was in a crisis of a surge of disability claims of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans,” he said. “I recommended in writing that the VA hire more claims processors to make sure the veterans get their benefits faster instead of facing six-month delays or even longer.”
“The VA didn’t do anything to help the veterans. What the VA actually did was several things to lock the doors and block veterans from getting mental health assistance from VA,” Sullivan added.
In its study, the RAND Corporation wrote that the federal government fails to care for war veterans at its own peril — noting post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury “can have far reaching and damaging consequences.”
“Individuals afflicted with these conditions face higher risks for other psychological problems and for attempting suicide. They have higher rates of unhealthy behaviors — such as smoking, overeating, and unsafe sex — and higher rates of physical health problems and mortality. Individuals with these conditions also tend to miss more work or report being less productive,” the report said.
“These conditions can impair relationships, disrupt marriages, aggravate the difficulties of parenting, and cause problems in children that may extend the consequences of combat trauma across generations.”
“These consequences can have a high economic toll,” RAND said. “However, most attempts to measure the costs of these conditions focus only on medical costs to the government. Yet, direct costs of treatment are only a fraction of the total costs related to mental health and cognitive conditions. Far higher are the long-term individual and societal costs stemming from lost productivity, reduced quality of life, homelessness, domestic violence, the strain on families, and suicide. Delivering effective care and restoring veterans to full mental health have the potential to reduce these longer-term costs significantly.”
Representatives of the Department of Veterans Affairs refused to comment for this story.
© 2008 One World
What was that about supporting out troops?
This is typical of how America has treated those vets who came home from war. In WWI, it was Shell Shock, which was Combat Fatigue by WWII, and now, it has new names. But it’s the same damn problem, the US doesn’t want to treat the mental damage that war does to human beings.
PTSD is the son of battle fatigue and the grandson of shell shock. You would think that by now we would be aware of the consequences of going off to war. We’ve been doing it for generations now. But the VA system still doesn’t seem to know what is wrong. It has nothing in place to deal with post-war psychological problems, yet it knows that all our wars produce post traumatic problems. All the more reason we need a Department of Peace.
Hoa binh
These doubts should not be NEW.
The mainstream media has been reporting these cutbacks as they have occurred during the Bush regime, albiet in a less conspicuous light than they have reported on wars, britney and other sexy and sensational topics.
In some cases a single media report or article reported that W was cheerleading at some military base at 9AM and signing away military benefits later that day. No hypocrisy there.
Why would anybody have noticed? It is, after all, un-American to connect the dots.
As if the US government gives a rats ass about the veterans. After the battle is over, the troops are expendable and no longer needed. After all, the vast majority of the troops come from the poor. While western culture has always been one of “every man for themselves”, this is becoming even more apparent these days.
elmysterio wrote: After all, the vast majority of the troops come from the poor.
Or the education-challenged. And now, young men and women with criminal records. If they survive Iraq, Blackwater will be waiting to receive new recruits into their ranks.
Pirates in the Caribbean in the Seventeenth century used to care for their own wounded and maimed. Tenderhearted? No, just more intelligent and far wiser than the Bush crowd.
George is so eager to have history pass judgment on him and his policies. Being a prophet myself, I can give you the verdict right now: corrupt, stupid, greedy, egocentric where ego had no place, callous, evil, bloodthirsty, amoral,…I could go on; but this will be enough to earn me a place on the waterboard—as well as the rest of you malcontents.
Well if your name is McCain you receive a “disability pension” of $58k a year. Not bad for someone who “can run around the Grand Canyon”.
No doubt, … he’s a professional at giving the