Let's make sure that we have health care benefits that have been promised to our veterans delivered to them in the communities that they are living in.
The VA should use every tool at their disposal to support and treat our veterans, including the specialized care offered by service dogs.
The Veterans Health Administration's socialized style of medicine, where the government is in charge of the hospitals and managing our veterans' health care, simply does not work.
The struggle these veterans face receiving adequate care for PTSD and depression is a tragedy that needs to be addressed, which is why I cosponsored the Clay Hunt SAV Act.
As efforts to fix this failure at the Veterans Administration continue, I also intend to persist in demanding answers and action on the establishment of a new clinic to serve the veterans in North Central Washington.
With more than 1,300 sites of care, VA operates the largest integrated health care system in the county.
We knew shortly after the war that our troops were becoming ill.
There's this romantic idea that's built up around war. But the pragmatic view is there are tons of people of my generation who have lost their lives, lost their marriages, or lost their health as a consequence of being sent to wars which could have been avoided.
This gulf war syndrome thing is truly unfortunate, and I've met some of the vets who have this. These are my guys, and I feel terrible about it.
When the Veterans Affairs Department implemented a program to provide home-based health care to veterans with multiple chronic conditions - many of the system's most expensive patients to treat - they received astounding results.
The United States government was proud that, although perhaps 100,000 Iraqis had died in the Gulf War of 1991, there were only 48 American battle casualties. What it has concealed from the public is that 206,000 veterans of that war filed claims with the VA for injuries and illnesses. In the years since that war, 8,300 veterans have died, and 160,000 claims for disability have been recognized by the VA.
But Gulf War Syndrome is not one cause, not one illness. It is many causes, many illnesses.
The Veterans Health Administration is a perfect case study of how government should stay out of patient care altogether.
Marijuana can be a highly effective treatment for PTSD, a condition afflicting nearly one in five veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And overwhelming scientific evidence has already proven marijuana's safety and efficacy for treating conditions like chronic pain, which affects many combat-injured veterans... Veterans in states without medical marijuana laws fare far worse. These veterans risk arrest for using marijuana to treat their combat injuries, joining the more than 800,000 Americans arrested annually for marijuana offenses... They deserve to receive medical advice from their VA doctors, not the DEA.”
PTSD is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. DEA is the Drug Enforcement Administration.