john999

They can spin a survey to make your answers come out to support the present system. They might ask 20 questions, but concentrate on just two questions that they will use to present to congress showing every vet loves the VA and believes that they get wondertul care at their local VAMC. Would that ask a question like: Do you believe that imcompentent VA employees should be fired? They will never ask such a question. They might ask: How do you rate your PCP 1.adequate 2. good 3. great. 4. superb.

Berta Are you saying that if a vet is TDIU he has some kind of inferred claim on SMC? I have often thought of going for housebound since my last rating decison said one of my conditions is agoraphobia and social phobia. I did not attempt going for this because I believed you had to be 100 schedular.

No cola for vets, ssd or civil service retirees. My insurance goes up 12% but no cola. The only decent benefit I got from 20 years of civil service was the insurance. The premiums keep going up. I will be damned if I am going to give up that benefit. My pension is pathetic but I want that insurance. It is the same insurance that the congressmen get. It is pretty good as you might expect.

Older vets are forgotten vets. I guess us nasty old Vietnam vets will be left to rot in a nursing home because a grateful nation won't spring for in-home care. If you are over 55 and are P&T the VA writes you off just like a bad debt. To limit this care to 9/11 vets is typical of congress. From all I hear it is cheaper to treat vets in-home than in a nursing home, and the outcomes are better. You know if you are not at least 70% SC the VA won't even provide nursing home care. You have to go on medicade. I bet if the VA does not have room for you even if you are 100% vet they farm you out to the cheapest nursing home in the area. You better have someone looking in on you every day or they will let you rot or starve to death. I speak from experience. If you have a loved one in a nursing home you need to check them from head to foot every day. I sued a nursing home for half a million dollars for abusing one of my relatives. Frail people don't last long in nusring homes. Every effort and expense should be made to keep them at home. What can you expect in a nation where people die because they don't have health insurance?

The effective date is one day after discharge. I filed within one year of discharge and it went back to the day after discharge. I became disabled within 24 hours according to the army.

I am thinking everything over believe me. I am so fed up with pain management I have gotten in the past. I don't know who to trust anymore. I don't trust doctors unless I am dying maybe and have no choice.

NPR released a report that the Major's fellow doctors thought he was psychotic. They said they would not want to share a foxhole with him. They thought he might try and kill fellow soldiers. This was at Walter Reed before Ft. Hood. The Army thought he was good enough since he signed that contract for med school. He was a psychotic, but good enough for the troops in Iraq. I think the hostile action comes from our own governments negligence. I don't think the dead and wounded at Ft Hood will be considered combat KIA and WIA. Who knows however, since this is a way to sweep incompetence and criminal neglect under the rug. They let a psychotic jihadist counsel troops and then blame some foreign terrorist group instead of themselves.

You should be paranoid if you don't have proof they got the records. Now let's hope they read them if they did get them. Sometimes they have evidence and they just ignore it.

I had about 5 months of psychiatric records from HAAF near FT Stewart that just disappeared. I called HAAF and they say St. Louis has them. I request them from St. Louis and then never heard of it. I say they destroyed them all. 40 years later what do I do?

I could really choke on the Pre-diabetes thing. They use that to deny compensation for DMII. The 126 fasting glucose level is just a number picked out of the air. You could have 125 for ten years and the VA never makes a DMII diagnosis. All the secondary conditions that came before the actual DMII DX are denied.

I hate to say it but the longer the wars in OIF/OEF drag on the more benefits and more attention vets will get. A long drawn out war with a steady stream of wounded coming back will get attention directed at the dysfunctional VA. Vets will never get together to block the stream. Half of them love the VA, and the other half hate it. Scandals and shameful acts of negligence are what motivates people and politicans to try and fix the system. The AARP is about 100 times as powerful as all vet organizations put together. NRA kicks ass as citizens and cops get blown away with assult weapons. Why...because they control money and can get the vote out during election time. Vet organizations just pose for pictures with smiling jackasses in congress. They all give each other a big wet kiss while slapping each other on the back. Your local chamber of commerse has more pull than most national vet organizations. People everywhere are vet friendly except when it comes to parting with tax dollars to help the vets.

Why don't you consider hiring a lawyer since this is so complex and involves so many issues? For increases you need some sort of medical documentation that the conditions have gotten worse. If it is multiple issues you might just go for the issues that will result in a 100% rating. When you file for multiple increases or ratings the VA usually defers some of them. Unless the issues can be proved to be service connected they don't count and I would not even bring them up in a claim.

Betty (Josephine) could really relate to this since an incident in her Navy basic freaked her out and ended her career. Basic is dangerous to your health. One guy in my basic attemped suicide.

Put your decision letter up where we can see it. I like to read those victory letters.

If you put DIC and the life insurance into context in our present society it is not a fortune. The 400,000 will pay off the mortgage and buy a new car. The DIC is not enough to support one individual much less a family. If a spouse with 3 kids is going to live on DIC she/he will have to get a job. The DIC will pay for day care. If the surviving spouse marries again before a certain age she/he will lose DIC. So a 24 year old widow can't remarry or she loses DIC as I understand it. What about the mothers of the 19-20 year olds? Do they get DIC. I don't think they do. I don't think getting killed on active duty is a real bargain.

Troy has the right ideas, but Utah is very conservative state. They don't like to spend money on "deadbeat vets". A friend went from California to Idaho. The VA in Idaho is populated by the doctors who are on their way to elephant graveyard. Those freedom loving Western states are loath to spend their money on begging veterans. They are rugged individuals. Just suck it up and keep starving. It took me 40 years to go from 10% to 90% IU. It seems just like yesterday. I was young, mentally unbalanced and jobless. Now I am old, mentally unbalanced and jobless, but I'm not worried 'cause I'm sitting on top of the world. Top of the world, Maw!

Who can live on 1154 bucks a month? Even with extra money for kids it is chicken fee. The kids of the "war heros" get to live in poverty. I grew up in poverty living off SSA and VA in the 1950's when a house cost 10,000 bucks. All the insurance money went to pay off the house and buy a car so my mother could get to the store. To be middle class a familiy of four needs about 80,000 bucks a year.

Maybe if they could prove the Major who gunned them down was acting on orders from jihadist group with foreign roots. If the FT. Hood victims are seen as being KIA then they should get PH's. That is going to create some controversy amoung combat troops in the field I think.

The VA pulled that stunt on me with DMII claim. They made the effective date the date of my exam. So according to the VA I got DMII on the date of my c&p. Before that I was OK. I was already TDIU, so I did not make a production out of it, but they cheated, and if they did it to me it is probably SOP.

Did they say why TDIU was deferred. If they need evidence of his IU send in everything you have and keep bugging them. IU and 100% same/same.

I have been doing reseach for years and hoping my feet would not get worse. The doctors say it is minor surgery, but I know better because the healing can be slow and you are altering the mechanics of your feet. The problem makes itself worse because as you become less mobile you may put on weight which makes it worse which makes you less mobile.........

Maybe November is the month? Pete said something about getting claims approved before Christmas due to VA budget.

Did you get P&T? That is a great victory. You must have had very good evidence. That was light speed for the VA. You have the decision letter in your hand?

I think we are going to be all by ourselves in Iraq and Afghanistan pretty soon. Our NATO pals are going to leave us to fight alone. These wars are very unpopular in Europe. Our young people are being fed into a meatgrinder. They are heros when they get murdered at Ft Hood, but if they went to Afghanistan and came back with PTSD they would be fakers and frauds.

I think Pete is right to get a person who has done many of these operations. They can make a mess of it. They cut about 2/3 of your PF which takes the pressure off your heel. If it works it is great. If it does not work it might be worse. I think it is a one time thing. If they don't get it right the first time just forget it. Some have many surgeries to correct new problems caused by the first surgery. It has gradually made me pretty much immobile over the last few years. I feel cursed.