XPOST: Shinseki - Maybe Vets to pay for care of service-related injuries - private insurance

[Traveling_Home]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/10/veterans.health.insurance/index.html

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance. …
No official proposal to create such a program has been announced publicly, but veterans groups wrote a pre-emptive letter last week to President Obama voicing their opposition to the idea after hearing the plan was under consideration.

The groups also cited an increase in “third-party collections” estimated in the 2010 budget proposal — something they said could be achieved only if the Veterans Administration started billing for service-related injuries.

Asked about the proposal, Shinseki said it was under “consideration.”
“A final decision hasn’t been made yet,” he said.

[alsame]

1. WTF??? This is unacceptable. n/t

[babylonsister]

2. RUMOR CONTROL: THERE IS NO PLAN TO MAKE VETERANS BUY HEALTH INSURANCE

Nice try, no cigar.


RUMOR CONTROL: THERE IS NO PLAN TO MAKE VETERANS BUY HEALTH INSURANCE

-- Out-of-control pseudo-

journalism and blog rants have distorted a budget proposal into something it isn't.


by Larry Scott

I'm going to start this exactly the way I started my last "Rumor Control" piece...

I love the Internet. I hate the Internet.

Love... the fact that the Internet allows us to communicate instantly and retrieve information that, just a few years ago, would have been nearly impossible to find.

Hate... the fact that any whack-job with a half-baked conspiracy theory can hunt-and-peck his way into my living room.

So, it's time to put another stupid rumor to rest.

The latest rumor revolves around a news story about VA Secretary Eric Shinseki "considering" a proposal to allow the VA to bill insurance companies for care received by service-connected disabled veterans. That story here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/nf09/nfmar09/nf031109-1.htm

The problem is that the story has been misinterpreted and blown all out of proportion.

As we know, the VA now bills insurance carriers for non-service-connected care if the veteran has insurance. If they don't, VA covers the care. And, currently, VA does not bill private carriers for service-connected care. (NOTE: Please don't write and tell me VA is billing your insurance company for service-connected care. We know that these mistakes can happen if procedures are coded incorrectly. These errors can be corrected by working with your local VA Billing Office.)

So, now we have some pseudo-journalist who just read the first part of the above article and picked out the phrase "make veterans pay" and didn't read the rest of the article for a full explanation of VA's insurance billing policy.

This person then went on to castigate Sec. Shinseki for even "considering" such a proposal. But, there's a problem with that. It's Shinseki's job to "consider" what is put on his desk. That's what they pay him to do. This proposal came from the Office of Management and Budget and is one of many proposals being "considered."


And, it is unfair to criticize Shinseki for doing his job when we don't even know what his response to the proposal might be. Remember, it's under "consideration" and we'll hear from him if he makes a statement or when the 2010 VA budget is drafted. If we don't like his stance on the proposal, we can scream then, but have no right to at this time. It should also be noted that this would never pass Congress.

This whole rumor thing gets worse. Leave it to some blogger to rant this into the ground by completely missing the concept and claiming that the government is going to force veterans to buy insurance to pay for their VA healthcare. Not so. Completely false. Bogus. You get the idea.

more...

http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/nf09/nfmar09/nf031209-1.htm