How many Vets do you know...and how many complain about the VA?
The media will obviously pick up on any possible negative, and ignore anything positive....as it does with pretty much everything. Yet, I have never heard a Veteran soldier complain about care at the VA....and I know a few.
Please do not take your hatred of government into this sector...unless you have some idea what you are talking about.
OMG, really?
As an FTI, I am in the military myself, and have served under every President since the first Reagan administration.
So do you
really want to go there?
During my 14 years in civilian life, I had to deal with the VA many times. And it was always a freaking nightmare. Report in for my evaluation within 90 days of discharge, and am told by an administrator that my disability had been reduced from 10% to 0%. Typical 3-9 month waits for even basic care for a service connected disability. Having completely incompetent doctors evaluating me, one so senile he tried to examine my elbow and wrist instead of my knee (3 times!).
Fighting to get dental care while a full time student, being denied repeatedly. Only to get a letter 3 months after I graduated saying that I was indeed covered, but since I was no longer in school they would not take care of the issue. After both my recruiter and myself requesting my military and medical records for 13 months, having to go to my Congressman and having them both in hand a week later.
Having a good friend who took 6 months to get his internal medicine appointment, only to be told he had prostate cancer. Waiting list was 3 months for surgery, he died 2 weeks before it was scheduled.
My own grandfather, a WWII vet. Went in because of breathing problems, after 3 weeks of him getting weaker and weaker with no diagnosis my father took him out of the hospital and flew him to Scripps-Kettering. Within 24 hours they had it diagnosed as a fungal infection, and he was home within 2 weeks.
And then there is my GI Bill, also administered by the VA. I was literally 3 days from the school dropping me for nonpayment and had yet to get the stipend. At least I finally got the check and paid back the 2 months of back rent before I was evicted.
Funny how you say you have never had issues with the VA, because most I know of find it a bloody nightmare. And I was not alone, every veteran in my class (there were 8 of us) had the exact same problem. And now they are threatening to sue me because they say they overpaid me $8k in benefits during the 9 months I was in school (that was pretty much the entire stipend for the time).