Veterans Not Entitled To Mental Health Care

[Gimpy]

VETERANS NOT ENTITLED TO MENTAL HEALTH CARE, Bush Administration lawyers say! -- Veterans have no legal right to specific types of medical care, the Bush administration argues in a lawsuit accusing the government of illegally denying mental health treatment to some troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

This has been the government's argument on VA healthcare for several years now: It's not what the veteran needs, it's what we say you will get if we have the money to give it to you.

For background on this lawsuit, with backlinks, click here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nf...nf011108-8.htm


The official web site for this lawsuit is here...
http://www.veteransptsdclassaction.org/index.html

Today's story here... http://www.sfgate.com/c
gi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/05/MNQLUQ4IS.DTL

Story below:

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Veterans not entitled to mental health care, U.S. lawyers argue


Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer


Veterans have no legal right to specific types of medical care, the Bush administration argues in a lawsuit accusing the government of illegally denying mental health treatment to some troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.


The arguments, filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, strike at the heart of a lawsuit filed on behalf of veterans that claims the health care system for returning troops provides little recourse when the government rejects their medical claims.


The Department of Veterans Affairs is making progress in increasing its staffing and screening veterans for combat-related stress, Justice Department lawyers said. But their central argument is that Congress left decisions about who should get health care, and what type of care, to the VA and not to veterans or the courts.

A federal law providing five years of care for veterans from the date of their discharge establishes "veterans' eligibility for health care, but it does not create an entitlement to any particular medical service," government lawyers said.


They said the law entitles veterans only to "medical care which the secretary (of Veterans Affairs) determines is needed, and only to the extent funds ... are available."


The argument drew a sharp retort from a lawyer for advocacy groups that sued the government in July. The suit is a proposed class action on behalf of 320,000 to 800,000 veterans or their survivors.


"Veterans need to know in this country that the government thinks all their benefits are mere gratuities," attorney Gordon Erspamer said. "They're saying it's completely discretionary, that even if Congress appropriates money for veterans' health care, we can do anything we want with it."


The issue will be joined March 7 at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti, who denied the administration's request last month to dismiss the suit. While the case is pending, the plaintiffs want Conti to order the government to provide immediate mental health treatment for veterans who say they are thinking of killing themselves and to spend another $60 million on health care.


The suit accuses the VA of arbitrarily denying care and benefits to wounded veterans, of forcing them to wait months for treatment and years for benefits, and of failing to provide fair procedures for appealing decisions against them.


The plaintiffs say that the department has a backlog of more than 600,000 disability claims and that 120 veterans a week commit suicide.


In his Jan. 10 ruling that allowed the suit to proceed, Conti said federal law entitles veterans to health care for a specific period after leaving the service, rejecting the government's argument that it was required to provide only as much care as the VA's budget allowed in a given year. A law that President Bush signed last week extended the period from two to five years.


In its latest filing, however, the Justice Department reiterated that Congress had intended "to authorize, but not require, medical care for veterans."


"This court should not interfere with the political branches' design, oversight and modification of VA programs," the government lawyers argued.


They also said the VA "is making great progress in addressing the mental health care needs of combat veterans." Among other things, they cited a law passed in November that required the department to establish a suicide-prevention program that includes making mental health care available around the clock.


Since June, government lawyers said, the VA has had a policy that all veterans who seek or are referred for mental health care should be screened within 24 hours, that those found to be at risk of suicide should be treated immediately, and that others should be scheduled for full diagnosis and treatment planning within two weeks. A new suicide-prevention hot line has been responsible for "more than 380 rescues," the lawyers said.


Erspamer, the plaintiffs' lawyer, was unimpressed.


"Nowhere do I see any explanation of what kind of systems they have in place that deal with suicidal veterans," he said. "There's no excuse for not spending the money Congress told them to spend on mental health care and leaving $60 million on the table when people are going out and killing themselves."


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BOHICA!------------------Looks like we're getting the shaft again!

Gimp

[SparrowHawk62]

These so called lawyers need to be taken out from behind the government desk they sit at and beaten about the head and shoulders!
When most of these kids return from the shit hole middle east, they will have learned that being in the Service is nothing like the video and computer games they use to play at home. People really do die, and suffer either while doing it or trying to prevent themselves from doing it.
Now a bunch of Ass Wipes who dress in a clean suit everyday want to tell our returning Veterans they are not entitled to Mental Health Care?
So our Vets with PTSD and other related stress and mental problems are ok, and get nothing more than a pat on the back, if that?
What a crock!

[Gimpy]

Just when you think these people can't sink any lower than they already have been...............we get this $hit!


Gimp

[locksly]

we get this $hit!

[exlrrp]

Originally Posted by Gimpy

Just when you think these people can't sink any lower than they already have been...............we get this $hit!


Gimp

What do you respect from Repuglicans, Gimp? And theyre the ones who say WE don't support the troops.

"...Veterans have no legal right to specific types of medical care, the Bush administration argues in a lawsuit accusing the government of illegally denying mental health treatment to some troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan...."

read that again!! That about says it all. but there's more:

"...Veterans need to know in this country that the government thinks all their benefits are mere gratuities," attorney Gordon Erspamer said. "They're saying it's completely discretionary, that even if Congress appropriates money for veterans' health care, we can do anything we want with it."

so the repuglican president's government think veteran's benefiits are mere gratuities. Well, they would be for Bush, he's not entitiled to ANY veteran's benefits. And Dick "Shoots his Friend" Cheney, as a Congressman, voted against raising veteran's benefiits EVERY TIME THE SUBJECT CAME UP!! Cheney, with 5 draft deferments is not eligible for veterans benefits either. and now check all the taxcuts and incentives theyve given to the big oil companies who post record profits every quarter--while the cost of oil has QUADRUPLED on their watch..
Yeah its really easy to see who supports the troops all right


Stay good, Gimp
James

[Packo]

I have nothing more to add than what my bro's above have said. I don't believe for one minute that John McCain would do such a thing, though, but I've been fooled before.

Pack

[revwardoc]

Seems like most of the country was fooled in 2000 & 2004.

[Packo]

I tired of all the hate. In the last 16 years I've witnessed the most hate and discontent ever...and I believe EVER in the history of this country. It sickens me daily to hear the hate and read the hate, especially on this website. There are no more civil conversations when it comes to anything political. Every small thing or utterance is taken to an extreme. In conversations if you don't agree, your a racist or a Nazi. I'm not inamered,(sic), with who I voted for in 2000 and 2004 but it doesn't make me want to change affiliations when I hear histrionic hate speech from the other side. Facts, without histrionics and over eggagerations will do more to get me to change then vitriolic hate. Some will take this as I'm just blaming one side. Not true. I'm sick of all of it from each side. There is so much blame to go around that nobody can "cast the first stone". There have been so many stones cast in the past 16 years that I do belive the stone has become an indangered species. Pighumper and I were talking today and we both just said is we want people in Washington that, for the first time since I can remember, care about all of us and work to remember why the f_ck they were sent to Washington in the first place instead of all the petty arguing and postering to just get votes. We are not optimistic. This crap is going to continue until this Country, the one that so many have died trying to perserve, collapses like a house of cards. I think it's time we all look at ourselves and say....how can WE do this without the HATE? I have been a major offender in hate speech. I used to get all upset and fire back with the most hateful things I could say as a way of getting back. It doesn't work. We all have to realize that our government was never set up to be all things to all people. We ALL have to believe in compromise and be rational. Not everybody is going to get what they want just because so and so is in power. I don't believe anyone has ever run for President of the United States so they could get in power and hurt us. It's bullshit. Democrats and Republicans have different ways of looking at things. I doesn't make one side Communists and the other Nazi's but that's what it's become in this country.....your one extreme or the other....period, and it just ain't true.

Ok, I've had my say and it still doesn't seem like I'm making the point that's banging around in my head. Just know that I will never reply to any post with hate speech be it about one side or the other. I find both sides to be filled with assholes and wish they would all just disappear and a whole new crop show up. Problem is....they'd probably be assholes too.

Pack

[catman]

No one could have said it better.


Trav

[Stick]

Packo, you're spot on as far as hate carrying on too long but disagreements should be taken and presented just as a disagreement without abrasiveness or insult. We've had our Ron's and Kule's but they've gone on to more fertile, futile pastures looking for victims. For the most part those of us that have a brain it would behoove us to just consider the source and not bite at the bait set out by dummys and fall down to their level.
Democrat? Republican? I just don't care. Who makes the most sense to me is what matters to me and I'll vote either way as long as the one running in an election thinks first of the people that he represents and not of him or herself. Someone can jump deep in my chit if they want to but for the first time since I first registered to vote when I was in the Army I missed going to the poles this past Tuesday. There just ain't anyone out there right now that turns me on and therefore I'm willing to let the majority out there decide who's going to be on the ballot come November when it really counts but I will assure you that before I go to the poles I will spend several hours looking at voting records and past histories of the candidates on the ballot.
Gimpy you are by far one of the most well informed poster here. I always look forward to reading your post because you back whatever you post up with facts. I'll still probably pull more levers down on the R side than on the D side in the booth. I spent most of the day, Tuesday sitting in a courtroom here along with 60 other members of our church while a case was being heard about a woman who was under the influence of drugs. She had mixed herself a Rx cocktail of different types of perscription drugs. She got one type of one drug from a doctor in Peachtree City and another perscription of a different drug from a doctor here in Fayetteville. She was "buzzen" and on March 8, '07 she pulled out in front of oncoming traffic while making a left hand turn and hitting one of the members of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, killing him and another that was in the car with him. John Minneberry was 42 years old and had 4 children, the youngest severly handicaped with MS. John adored that little girl but he's gone now. John had served time in Iraq during Desert Storm while in the Coast Guard as a search and rescue hellicopter pilot. The Judge, Fletcher Sams (R) found the woman guilty on two misdemenor charges, failure to yield and two counts of vehicular homicide and placed her on two years probation