Recruit With Cancer Denied Medical Benefits (Michigander)

[livvy]

Well, this is just not right...

From the article:

“Frankly, it’s not fair to the taxpayers,” he said. “Should the taxpayers be on the hook for a lifetime pension and health care for a {kid} who just sadly happened to pop with leukemia?” In Weston’s case, Jackonis said, he and his doctors should continue making the argument that the disease could have arisen in the brief timeframe in question.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm just fine with my tax dollars being used to help this young man. Even if he did have the disease prior to enlisting, it's not like he enlisted to get the coverage, to purposely defraud the system. Just cover the kid and make him well.







By Erik Holmes - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Dec 12, 2008 16:47:59 EST

Like many young recruits, Airman Basic Joseph Weston was looking forward to a career in the Air Force as an escape from a hometown without many opportunities.

“Michigan’s economy is just so awful up there,” said Weston, a 21-year-old native of Cadillac, Mich. “You don’t see ‘Now hiring’ signs. I was working 20 hours a week at a restaurant. That’s not enough to pay for an apartment and gas.”

Weston reported to basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, on May 27. He should be well on his way to a new life by now. He should be at tech school, learning to turn wrenches and fix jet engines. He should be about to pin on his first stripe and looking forward to his first operational assignment.

But none of that has happened.

Less than two weeks into basic training, on June 9, an Air Force doctor gave Weston devastating news: He has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a form of blood cancer that is exceptionally rare, and often deadly, in adults.

more...


http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/12/airforce_cancer_120908w/%2e

[amdezurik]

1. dumbaya had a pre-existing condition

that of chicken-hawkedness and congenital assholishness and he has been sucking off the public teat for decades, and now they want to screw this guy?

[livvy]

3. Not to mention alchoholism, chronic stupidity, a language disability...

global destructivitis, an abscess of compassion, and general vulgaric wickednosis.


And look what we taxpayers "donated" to the lying weasel and all his cronies.

Just cover the guy...make him well. I'd like to see at least some of my money do something good.

[enlightenment]

2. Poor kid.

I wonder when he actually enlisted? I realise things move more quickly these days, but when I enlisted in the AF in the 70s, I took the oath a full two and a half weeks before being shipped off to Lackland.

The article makes it sound like he didn't take the oath until he got to basic.

[Buck Laser]

4. The military is beginning to act like an insurance company...

Their business is denying claims.