My Dad is in terrible back pain. He has spinal stensosis, and 2 slipped discs. HIs Parkinsons keeps him moving so he's jarring his back over and over again
He had an visit with a pain doc for the first time in 2 years scheduled for Monday, but he just got a call. Since this visit is on his medicaid, and not the VA, they cancelled his appointment.
My Mom tried to help explain, she was told "I'm talking to Him, not you"
She finally said the doctor must be paid, and cancelled his appointment.
@NiveusLepus
Unfortunately, many doctors don’t accept Medicaid, because it pays so little. I’m unclear about why he was referred out of the VA system in the first place. Are there no pain doctors in the VA? Or is his problem not service connected?
@LnzyHou @Smccune55 They can for some issues. It's a bit of a morass.
Dad keeps getting denied for a greater amount of service connected disability assistance for instance, because while he was stationed in Iwo Jima running a Loran station for a year, and then did clean up duty on Guam. They lost all the records for his time in Guam, and so they can't verify his toxic exposure.
The benefits coordinator says this is very common as the computerization of records was imperfect.
This is west Texas. Trump country big time for the politicos... As to that is where it ends, maybe? They are on appeal.
All the records of his entire unit cannot be lost. Can’t they investigate conditions of other members of his unit?
@LnzyHou @Smccune55 They have to be able to verify he was there. He was assigned in Guam on temporary duty, independent of his unit, while rotating back to the states.
It's when they gave him his new assignment and he got a little tipsy that he got into a dispute with another enlisted man, which was fine until his temp CO got in the way of the first punch.
They reassigned him to New Jersey, where he met my mom.
They have found some deep in the weeds reason to yoga around approving him.
@NiveusLepus @LnzyHou @Smccune55
I wonder if #BetoORourke could help. I'm not being facetious. If he can't personally, I'm betting someone in his office or circle can. With zero cynicism, I think this crusade might be a boost for his campaign. Plus he just seems a very decent human.
https://betoorourke.com/issue/serve-veterans/
@wolfwoman @NiveusLepus @LnzyHou @Smccune55 Isn't he one of the very rich people from a rich family that said they were not going to take big corporate money and run a grassroots campaign, but then he changed his mind because it was "important" and ran an oil money plus grassroots campaign that failed and now we have Abbot's Texas?
That Beto O'Rourke? Yeah. Seems nice.
But whose side is he on?
@AskTheDevil @wolfwoman @LnzyHou @Smccune55 Not to play Devil's advocate, but I do not believe any politician has clean hands.
@NiveusLepus @AskTheDevil @wolfwoman @Smccune55
Nor do I. Politics is a very dirty business.
@LnzyHou @NiveusLepus @wolfwoman @Smccune55 I think part of the way that is able to continue is that it's been allowed to continue so long that people just act like it's supposed to be that way.
I don't think it is. I don't think corruption and lies and broken promises and venality and moral failure are a natural and essential part of politics, I think they're diseases that we should get out of politics.
Why do we stand for it?
@AskTheDevil @LnzyHou @NiveusLepus @Smccune55
And this - I've read a lot on the #psychology of such things. Again, what to share 🤔
@wolfwoman @AskTheDevil @LnzyHou @Smccune55
Share whatever makes your wolfish heart happy ^_^