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Give veterans a choice

On a chilly evening in December 2014, I stepped outside from an international military gala in Washington, D.C., to take a call from my best friend’s wife. Sherry stammered in a broken voice, “Tom, they found Kwesi …” My Ranger buddy from Basic Training and best friend, a Ranger School Distinguished Honor Graduate, with eight overseas deployments under his belt, had taken his own life.

Today the toll continues. Each day, 20 veterans commit suicide. That is one every 70 minutes. With recent events at the VA center in California, our nation’s attention again is focused on the quality of treatment our veterans receive through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The VA health care system clearly needs reforms. It is not adequately positioned to provide vital services to our men and women who have given so much. With an estimated 250,000 new veterans transitioning from military service over the next few years, we do not have the luxury of delay. There currently exists a backlog of over 90,000 disability claims by veterans that won’t be determined in the next 180 days. The Veterans Administration’s 2017 report on quality of care at the agency’s 149 VA Medical Centers reveals that 43 hospitals received a score of “2” or less — on a scale of 1-5. That is a staggering 30 percent of all major agency facilities.

Reform in the current Veterans Health Administration is mandatory. It is time to re-establish the veteran as the priority. While a comprehensive review of how the bureaucracy can be changed, I want to focus on one, that of choice.

The current VA system patronizes our veterans and needs reform. A veteran receiving care under Medicare, Medicaid, or the military retirement health care provided by Tricare, is considered fully capable of determining his or her own health care providers. In fact, under Medicare, a patient can go to pretty much any hospital or doctor they want, without many exceptions.

However, when veterans enter the VA medical system, suddenly they are deemed incompetent to choose their own health care provider. If he or she believes a health care provider outside the VA can serve them better, either because that health care provider has unique capabilities the VA does not, or is closer, or can see them faster, that veteran has to go hat in hand, begging the VA to let them see a provider outside the VA system. And even then, that earnest request is usually delayed or denied.

And it’s not just the VA medical system believing they can serve them better — the presumption amongst the VA administrators and the larger veteran service organizations — is that a veteran is not capable of making any medical decisions for himself or herself. That’s why many veteran service organizations talk about why the VA needs to stay in control — to help the veteran make an “informed choice.”

That is, in my opinion, condescending and paternalistic. Over 44 million Americans are trusted to choose their medical providers under the Medicare system, but the 7 million veterans enrolled in the VA medical system are not. Does that make sense? Do we really believe that the men and women who led other troops in battle, were trusted with our country’s greatest secrets, and who made life and death decisions every day, are suddenly transformed into drooling idiots once they enter the VA system? I think not. Our veterans are fully capable of choosing their own health care provider.

My son is a victor over bone cancer. If I’d been told my son could only go to a single doctor, at a single medical facility, and if I went anywhere else, I would lose my medical coverage, I would have been understandably irate. Add on to that being told I was not capable of making informed medical care decisions, and I would have demanded change.

Yet every day, veterans are told exactly that — they are told they are not capable of making their own health care decisions, are only allowed to go see the specific doctors at the specific medical facilities the VA chooses, and if they even try to go anywhere else for medical treatment, even if they pay for it themselves, they will place themselves at risk of losing their medical coverage for “non-compliance.” That is just wrong.

Promises made to our wounded warriors are promises that must be kept. It is critical to our national defense that those that give so much, and that achieve so much; are not taken for granted, but instead are honored and cared for well.

Veterans should be able to choose where they get their health care. Eligible veterans should have the option of accessing the VHA or utilizing civilian resources. With VHA issues of quality of care, long waiting times, inaccessibility to facilities for veterans in rural areas, the veteran should not be denied adequate care. I do not propose to dismantle the VA; I support a strengthening of the provision of services. But, a veteran’s choice of a doctor, or a specialist, or a facility should not be hindered.

Current stipulations for “out of VA network” care are onerous and bureaucratic. The interest of the veteran should be of prime importance, and the veteran or his/her family is best poised to make that decision.

Within weeks of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Congress recognized the moral imperative of providing for those soldiers disabled in service to our country, giving “pensions” to this nation’s earliest veterans. From the beginning of our great nation, there has never been a question of “whether” America has a responsibility to provide for our military disabled or injured in, but “how.” It’s time that we empower our veterans to choose their providers.

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Tom Willis is a Special Forces/Green Beret with the West Virginia National Guard. With 18 years service, he has deployed to 20 countries. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Rick Herrema Foundation, a non-profit organization to help other veterans deal with PTSD. A Martinsburg resident, Willis is a candidate for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.

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