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?

@Smccune55 @NiveusLepus

Wait.

VA ONLY treats medical issues caused by military service?

Since when?

@LnzyHou @Smccune55 They can for some issues. It's a bit of a morass.

@LnzyHou @Smccune55

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.

@NiveusLepus @Smccune55

And that’s where it ends?

Surely you have his congressman involved?

@LnzyHou @Smccune55

This is west Texas. Trump country big time for the politicos... As to that is where it ends, maybe? They are on appeal.

@NiveusLepus @Smccune55

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 @NiveusLepus @LnzyHou @Smccune55

Will you please point me to any/everything that details this? We all know widipedia isn't accurate but I haven't found anything thus far ...

@wolfwoman @NiveusLepus @LnzyHou @Smccune55 If you really want to dig, you'd want to look for early articles about campaign promised not to take donations, then go to one of the vote data sites and dig through. There should also be media articles from that time mentioning that he'd chose to walk back that promise.

I'm just going off memory, here, and thought it was likely shared cultural memory, but it's possible everyone missed it except the very cynical and alert.

Or I'm crazy.

@AskTheDevil @NiveusLepus @LnzyHou @Smccune55

OK, I'm gonna put this out in small bits as I learn. This has a LOT of info & although I didn't see the fb meme, I recall reading about all of these claims. And I'm going to hashtag now :) #politics

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/beto-orourke-reality-check/

1/

@AskTheDevil @NiveusLepus @LnzyHou @Smccune55

Finally, I have to say that I like Beto and nobody is perfect. I learned a lot more about him thanks to your urging. I really, really want Ted Cruz gone! But I'm not in TX nor have I ever lived there, so I'm just a person who cares that someone more decent than Cruz tried hard to beat him. And dear God above, I wish Abbott would just ... vanish. So everything Beto does to help other candidates makes me happy.
4/4

@wolfwoman @AskTheDevil @NiveusLepus @Smccune55

You don’t say anything about Allred whose running against Cruz. Do you not support him?

I’ve been contributing to Allred campaign for months. That’s how badly I want America to be rid of Cruz.

@LnzyHou @AskTheDevil @NiveusLepus @Smccune55
I do support Allred! Just was concentrating that thread on Beto.

@wolfwoman @AskTheDevil @NiveusLepus @Smccune55

Understand. You referred to Cruz in Beto string.

@LnzyHou @wolfwoman @NiveusLepus @Smccune55

Every time I see the name Cruz, I stop whatever I'm doing to imagine a day when he's no longer in the news.

Ahhhhhh.....

@AskTheDevil @LnzyHou @wolfwoman @Smccune55

I think of Santa Cruz. It's a groovy town with a neat restaurant that has vegan milkshakes and pancakes.

@NiveusLepus @AskTheDevil @LnzyHou @Smccune55

I went there all.the.time. When I was a teenager, my friends & I would pile into whichever parent's car we could finagle, and head out for the day. A 2 hour drive to the beach for the best day!

I couldn't go for years after it got so big and commercialized :(

Was there 2 years ago with DD2 and DGD2 and enjoyed it again. But it will never be as rad & groovy as it was in the late 60's early 70's.