Boston VA Makes Significant Cut In Veterans Benefits Virtually Unannounced

By TRB

I saw the theft the other day. It is just begining to take place. Balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and the powerless.When disabled veterans go to their medical appointments at the the Jamica Plain VA clinic they will not be receiving the same amount for their travel as they did in former years. The new directer of travel pay at the VA has decided to cut travel pay to disabled veterans by as much as 75 percent.

Her reasoning is ludicrous and every veteran knows it. She claims that the tiny VA outpatient clinic in Hyannis is closer, meaning these veterans have no need to go see their regualar doctors, for in many cases their serious illness at the enormous and well equiped - former hospital - that is the VA outpatient clinic at Jamacia Plain. Instead they should go to the small, understaffed building in Hyannis that is about the size of some fast food resteraunts.

I have been to this Hyannis clinic. I am not a doctor. but anyone could easily see that the VA Clinic in Jamacia Plain offers a better standard of care than the Hyannis clinic, which is approximately 1/30 the size of the clinic in JP. There is very little waiting room. A lot of verterans from the Cape use the JP clinic. If sudddenly they changed clinics to the sub-clinic service in Hyannis it is doubtful that they could even be seated to wait for their doctors.

Obviously, what we are seeing here is proof of the kind of U.S. citizen the goverment plans to rob to balance its budget rather than raise taxes on billionaires, they will take it from the disabled verteran, from the veteran wounded or otherwise injured serving his or her country. It will now cost such veterans more in travel to see doctors they have been seeing for years. How many VA hospitals in this country are already raiding veterans benefits to cut costs? The VA won't say.

A lot of these patients are older men who will see this drop in veterans benefits as the perfect excuse to ignore going to their medical appointments. One of the reasons travel pay waa first initiated was because VA officials noted that a significantly higher number of veterans went to their appontments if the VA subsidized them for their gas. You have to understand that in most cases I am not talking about even middle class people. I am talking about the poor, service-connected disabled American veteran. And he is already being ripped off.

I was very curious about this taking of benefits so I asked the clerk who is in charge of the VA travel office. She told me that she could not answer any of my questions. Those would have to be answered by the Public Affairs Officer. She told me, in so many words, that if a veteran wanted to continue to see a doctor he may have had for years, he would just have to accept less travel pay. I asked her if she thought the number of patients who actually keep their appointments might decrease. She said she didn't know.

When you are a service-connected disabled veteran and have been one for 30 years or so, you have seen great changes take place in the VA. I have written positive stories about them in the past. But this reduction in travel pay is an Oh-Oh moment for me. My question is what veteran's benefit are they going to cut next? My other question is where the hell is Senator John Forbes Kerry, Vietnam Veteran as this cut in benefits takes place? Has his office even heard about it? Does he plan to fight for the veteran for the veteran's benefits? That has always been his promise. Will he come through on it?

The new policy only pays the Cape Cod vet what it would cost him to go to the Cape Cod VA clinic facitity, which is not anywhere near as good as the clinic in Boston. So this policy has the effect of cutting your pay beniftis while lowering the standard of your medical care. Who made this decision?And has that person been at both out patient facilities and seen the remarkable diffrence in the two? How many veterans from the Cape use the Boston clinic? How many have had the same doctor there for 10 or more years? How many will go to this tiny and ill-equipped clinic in Hyannis? How many service connected disabled veterans will stop going to clinics all together because of this new policy?

President Barack Obama has said in public many times that we will "never let down" the veteran, especially the disabled veteran, As you walk into the Jamacia Plain clinic for your appointment, Obama's portrait hangs on the wall. All these Democrats, Republicans and the President himself have lied to the veterans. Sent them off to irrational wars and lied to them too. These leaders don't care about veterans benefits; they care about the rich and making sure they don't have to pay taxes.

Well President Obama and Senator Kerry, it is not the rich who fight our wars is it? You do know that much. This sudden change in travel pay making it more expensive for the chronically ill vet to see his doctor, is a crime against all veterans everywhere. Where is the VFW? The DAV? The service organizations that claim watching out for the veteran as their number one priority. Where are they now? Do they have the VA in court for essentially claiming that, in a medical sense, the VA Outpatient clinic at Jamacia Plain is the same as the gas station sized outpatient clinic on the Cape?

They are clearly two very different medical facilities. But that is not the point. The point is that the government has already found many ways in which to balance the budget on the backs of the poor. One is to cut back on the service connected disabled veterans benifits. The height of this class war is only two years old and the government is already coming after veterans entitlements.

Remember that next time you vote.