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According to a study released by the Harvard Medical School, 2,266 veterans under the age of 65 died last year as a result of not having health insurance. Researchers emphasize that "that figure is more than 14 times the number of deaths (155) suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and more than twice as many as have died (911 as of Oct. 31) since the war began in 2001."
The 1.46 million working-age veterans that did not have health insurance last year all experienced reduced access to care as a consequence, leading to "six preventable deaths a day."
Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people — too poor to afford private coverage but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor at Harvard Medical School. [...]
Full article available at Huffington Post.
15 Comments
judas forking priest
thanks for writing this up nahant — this is a shame on us all.
recommended
Recommended for sure, great write-up nahant. WTF is going on in this country when we can’t take care of our veterans?
I catch the bus across from the Denver VA to go to my work.
What I see there, has saddened me for the longest time. You just put numbers to it, which is even more unbelievable.
I don’t know what else to say this second.
Saw this from HuffPo earlier today.
Great capture Nahant, recd.
The losses, and the cause of the losses, are sickening.
Thanks all!! And if you know a Vet make sure and let him/her Know that you honor their sacrifice and service for Our Country.
Thanks for this, Nahant, rec’d.
My brother goes to the VA hospital in Albuquerque. He really likes the care they give there. Now we just need to make it so every veteran can go to the VA for medical care.
Yeah our newest Vets are only given two years of care at the VA unless they have Service Connected injuries.
and I learned from the wiki that Bush WH tired to slow that down to a drip as well.
pigs
Not just Bush but the whole Republican caucus in both houses had been working to limit any benefits to our Veterans! And they say they support the troops… what lying fuckers!
This should be front paged. This is horrible!
Just a note, this is an extremely worthy topic and I’m glad it was diaried, however, it is also copied directly from the Huffington Post. Be careful about copyright and Fair Use issues when writing diaries. The post has been edited to reflect that.
The figure will be higher as soon as Kent Conrad and his merry little band have their way! The axe will soon fall on those filthy entitlements of which VA Benefits is one, along with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
We simply cannot raise taxes on the rich, that one percent that has more of our Nation’s wealth than the bottom 90%, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that 217 members of Congress are Millionaires and therefore members of that one percent?
We must have Fiscal Discipline! Pete Peterson, the Billionaire, has demanded that these poor people toe the line and suck it up! The Cato Institute, AEI, and Heritage Institute are in solid agreement.
They carry through, I will be strongly inclined to show them just what I learned in the Military. The “Bonus Army” redux, but this time we will know better…
I realized how ignorant I was about veterans benefits when I read this yesterday – I thought x amount of hitches resulted in decent, lifelong care – wherein our own Toby disabused me of same by pointing out she has a son in law who served 10 years in AF and left without any benefits
heartbreaking and disgusting
Here again the American people are so dumb they believe that vets get the best of care free, with no restrictions.
People actually think our Governemnt works.
It should be eveident to even the uneducated that the people in Washington really don’t care for people, vets, or anyone else.
They don’t care who dies as long as they can save a buck by not giving them care. It’s not just one party that thinks like this it’s both. We believe what they say, and are to blind to see what they do.
Why would these jerks care about vets more than regular Americans? Look what they have done by supporting Black Water. I have a bad attitude.