Wounded in Iraq? Get ready to be diagnosed with a preexisting "personality disorder" & no benefits

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070401-031851-5270r

US Iraq vets cheated out of medical care, disability pay

Sherwood Ross
Middle East Times
April 1, 2007

MIAMI, FL, USA -- Over the past six years, some 22,500 soldiers have been discharged on grounds of "personality disorder," a condition that can be claimed as having existed prior to their tour of duty, thereby absolving the Pentagon of its obligation to provide them with medical care and pay for their benefits.

Over the course of a six-month investigation published in The Nation magazine for April 9, reporter Joshua Kors learned of "multiple cases" in which "soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits."

According to Kors: "The conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans' rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals." They say the military is purposely misdiagnosing soldiers "to cheat them out of a lifetime of disability and medical benefits, thereby saving billions in expenses."

With an average disability payment of about $8,900 a year and a medical cost of about $5,000 per year over a 40-year period per soldier, separating 22,500 of them would save the Pentagon $8-billion in disability pay and $4.5-billion in medical care over their lifetimes, the article says.

[Corgigal]

1. So now being injured in Iraq

is just another "workers comp" case. Time to get attorneys and fight. Republicans are now running the military has another business.

[jwirr]

14. They were already losing files and denying the actual injuries in

Veitnam. This is a total betrayal of our soldiers.

[MrModerate]

2. Still trying to wage war on the cheap . . .

And discovering it doesn't work. Get this, bozos -- WAR AIN'T CHEAP!

On the other hand, they lowered the recruiting standards so much, it's not much of a stretch to imagine that some of these soldiers *did* come into the military with preexisting conditions.

Doesn't relieve us of the responsibility of providing them benefits after the fact, however.

[BluePatriot]

3. Yeah, private ins. tries to pull that crap too

What a disgrace. This is the military, though, if they start up with this BS isn't there any way they can then be held liable for not catching/screening for a "preexisting condition" that impairs a soldier's readiness? (In the context of finding a loophole to get benefits, of course, not to say that any of this stuff was really preexisting)

[stellanoir]

4. "Preexisting personality disorder" = presumption that one could trust their government

to not start a preemptive war on bogus intelligence with no planning and not treat them subhumanly

[rodeodance]

5. If they did have this------they should not have been allowed to enlist and fight!

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

6. It's Catch 22

nt

[rodeodance]

7. pass this widely around your email and the media---

[NNN0LHI]

8. Imagine trying to get a job or purchase private health insurance after this diagnosis?

Good luck.

Don

[Richard Steele]

15. Adding false, life-altering INSULT to disabling injury- how B*shCabal™ "supports the troops".

Yes, "good luck" in building a normal life with
THAT label stuck to you forever...

EVERY time I think these soulless bastards couldn't
get any slimier or more despicable, they find a way
to go lower.

I'm not gonna say more, as it might get our fine DU
Admins another visit from the Secret Service.
Let's just say "Karma is a BITCH" and leave it at that.

[IWantAChange]

9. And where might the directives for these despicable actions have come from?

Let's see - if the Iraq war is GWB's war and the waging of this war has been directed by the Republican Administration and built by a Republican Secretary of Defense (Rummy) I'm going to go WAY OUT on a limb and suggest that we have yet another sterling example of Republicans SUPPORTING THE TROOPS.

[jwirr]

10. Just another new game to deny benefits. We need a univeral

single payer health care plan. Veterans would get service from anyone they want to go to anywhere.

[Rosemary2205]

12. If the single payer is the federal government

and the federal government treats soldiers this way, what makes you think they won't treat all of us this way........

I say this, but I too am in favor of firing all the health insurance companies (because they value profit over care).

[jwirr]

13. I am assuming that health care will be delivered by private care

providers of the patients choice. I do not want a government of care providers - that would be just exactly like the vet hospitals we have now. We keep competition in the program by letting the client choose the health care provider they want. You bad, you loose patients.

We do the care for developmentally disabled persons here in MN that way and it works. If my daughter's foster family do not do a good job then I am free to boat them out. What we have here is a consumer driven system and the government program does only two things: they are responsible for monitoring the services to see that they are within the standards set for the service and they pay the cost. The real power here is the client or the client's guardian - me.

[ComerPerro]

18. fair point, but I would respond by reminding you

that a government that would impliment such a program would be equipped to deal with things like this, and wouldn't have to resort to cheating people out of treatment.

Basically, right now, if the Military has to spend money on medical treatment for injured vets, that takes money away from what is being funneled to Haliburton and the other profiteers.

[SnowGoose]

11. So a little under 14 grand, versus creating more Tim McVeighs

How many of those men and women, with intimate knowledge of arms and now improvised explosives would have to be pushed beyond desperation to violence before the net cost goes into the red?

I know that this extreme. The vast, vast majority of these people would never "lose it" no matter how badly they were treated by their society upon their return.

Additionally, the prevention of killing sprees is not the primary reason to treat these returning soldiers with the appreciation and respect. The primary reason is because it's the right thing to do ~ they've earned every bit of their benefits by serving in the living hell Bush has created.

All that having been said, however, there is nothing more dangerous than someone with nothing left to lose. Especially when we've trained that someone so well in the arts of destruction. We'll be suffering the consequences of this mis-administration for a long, long time to come.

[MiniMe]

16. It would be money that didn't go to the Bush cronies

:sarcasm:

[ComerPerro]

17. The military is just doing what health insurance companies have been doing for years

its sick, but its nothing new