According to the super capable, stable genius, if Biden (or maybe Obama or maybe even Hillary. He’s not sure who he last ran against.) gets elected again, he’ll probably get us into World War Two. Damn, again?!? That war sucked the first time through. I’m not sure I WANT a redux…

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I served in the US Air Force and earned an Honorable Discharge. That makes me eligible for VA medical coverage but, truth be told, I chose not to pursue it for many, many years. I was not a combat veteran and, in my experience, it’s quite common for non-combat veterans to stand aside for combat veterans, who, likely, need the resources more.

I have a friend who served in the Navy, also non-combat. He wasn’t using the VA, either. The thing is, the older we get the more medical services we need and in our current, vicious, Capitalist-crap-hole of a country (“America! We’ll squeeze til you die, then we’ll squeeze a little more!”), people go where they can to get health care. So, when my friend had a serious health issue, he hooked up with the VA to help him out.

Apparently, he likes it. He and I have been friends for a long, long time. I trust him. When he told me about his great experience and suggested I should go with the VA, I re-considered my position and looked into it. He said he gets all of his medications for $5.00 a bottle. What a deal. He DID point out that, mostly, he has to go to San Francisco for treatment. He lives in northern California and takes a special VA bus, spends the night at the VA facility, gets his treatment, then takes the bus home.

My experience has not mirrored his.

When one joins the VA, one is assigned a doctor, so you get what you get. What I got was a woman who doesn’t seem to be too interested in being there and every time I’ve spoken with her, to date, she seems to think I’m trying to put something over on her. (I have no idea what that might be.) The first time I met her, it was a welcome meeting and she set up prescriptions from my other provider. She also told me I should maintain my other coverage. I started ordering meds from the VA. They mail them and it’s quite convenient – but they were NOT $5.00/bottle and, in keeping with the normal quality of her work, a couple weren’t even set up in the correct dosages so I got some from the VA and kept getting some from my private provider. (I tried to get her to correct the dosages. She refused.) Just before my last appointment, I tried to refill a couple of things and everything listed said ‘Expired.’ Weird. My appointment was literally days later so I thought I’d just mention it to her then.

When I did? She looked confused. She said, “We don’t provide your medications.” Now I was confused. I said, “You have been.” She said, no, she hadn’t seen that in the records. I pointed out that she set them up. I mentioned that I have meds issued by the VA, bottles with the VA logo on them. She stopped debating the point but made no effort to renew the prescriptions and I came away believing she has no intention of doing so. Also, it seemed to make her defensive.

I have a problem in my wrist. I get this bone spur that presses against the nerves. It hurts. After awhile, it hurts a LOT. It comes and goes and I know what it is and how to fix it. A shot of cortisone does the trick. My other choice is a tricky surgery. I told her about the pain, told her the history, and asked for the shot. Her response? “We don’t just hand out things because a patient asked us to.” Hey, no shit, huh? I knew she would want x-rays. I just ALSO knew what she would find and was trying to do an end-run around the surgery talk. It’s a waste of time. Surgery is not an option for me. This is America. I have to earn every day, or else, so the message goes, I deserve to die. You know, “…and reduce the ‘surplus’ population.”

She explained to me that if a shot of cortisone was warranted, I would have to go to San Francisco to get it. Are you kidding me? If traffic is good, it’s just under an hour to get to the city for me. (Traffic is rarely that good, any more.) It’s more like an hour and a half getting home. The shot takes about two minutes to administer. Two and a half hours of driving for a two-minute shot? How stupid is that?

I had done a lab panel before the most recent visit. Oops, they missed one of the tests. She explained that I would have to go back to the lab for the one they missed. No sweat. At the end of the appointment, she casually asked me if any “alcohol or recreational drugs are involved.” Okay, alcohol IS a “recreational drug” so the phrasing of that question was stupid. I “recreate” with a little wine most evenings. But, no, her phrasing of her question wasn’t stupid, it was tricky. She and I had not talked about it but when I got to the lab, they ALSO wanted a urine sample. I asked why. The lab tech explained it was a tox screening for drugs.

I don’t DO drug tests. I count them a violation of my constitutional rights, both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. It’s an invasive search without probable cause and without a warrant, a fishing expedition, and it absolutely leads to self-incrimination. (Yes, my position on the topic HAS denied a few potential employers the benefits of my services.) Fortunately, she hadn’t mentioned her little ambush test and I wasn’t aware they would need that sample in the lab so I stopped by the bathroom on the way to the lab. When I saw the cup, I told the tech that wouldn’t be happening. When I learned what it was for, I was glad for the way things had worked out. But now? I have NO trust in my VA doctor.

She’s very unresponsive. She doesn’t seem to know what day it is, let alone which patient she’s with or what she has done for said patient. She’s very good at “no” and now I see her as sneaky and underhanded, as well. I walked out of the VA in the exactly same medical condition as when I walked in and with no provision in sight, my VA “doctor’s” advice ringing in my ears, “You should see a doctor about that…”

I can’t just switch to a different (hopefully better) doctor at the VA. There’s a process and it STARTS with asking the offending doctor to reassign me. That seems a little like asking Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from a case involving his bribing friends and/or his criminal wife. “NO!”

So, for me? The VA is basically a wash-out. I can get little tests and screenings, maybe. Care, though? Not so much. The only decent advice she ever gave me was to keep my private coverage. Of course, private insurance in this once-great nation is like a personal seat license (PSL). The PSL you pay for only allows you to pay even more for seats. Health care insurance in this country only gets you in the door, where you can then pay and pay and pay some more.

I’ll tell you this: I hope my VA experience is an anomaly. I hope vets who don’t have access to other avenues of health care, like I do, aren’t stuck in such an unresponsive, dare you-to-use system. I don’t know, maybe the phrase “Thank you for your service” is supposed to replace decent health care. I would be interested to hear if you use the VA and what your experience is, if you would be inclined to share…