The Common Ills: Iraq snapshot

This was the moment of a two-part hearing. Thefirst-part of this series of hearings was held May 18th and for more on that you can relate to that day'ssnapshot as good as Ava's "Scott Brown questions DoD's concept of streamlining," Kat's "DoD embarrasses at Senatehearing" and Wally's "VA can't do a basic service question." In addition, you can pour the audience at the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee's hearing page or, if you're having problems with that page, you can stream audio of the audience from this CSpan page.

[For the back board of Wednesday's hearing, I relied on the current because I left to see the House ForeignAffairs Committee - see Wednesday's snapshot andAva's report "Ron Paul (Ava)" (at Trina's site).] To check on veterans issues for two more topics. At the airport today, we were talking about this audience and a veteran approached. He's a Gulf War veteran and he cherished to observe a job with VA care that isn't covered in hearings. It's when a veteran needs maintenance and is not taken to a VA facility. He had collapsed from the heat earlier in the week, an ambulance was called and rather of being interpreted to the nearest VA, he was interpreted to a for-profit hospital. He subsequently learned that the VA hospital was only a mile away. He declared he was talkingand able to sit up in the ambulance but they insisted that the VA hospital was too late. The wish he received at the for-profit hospital was grossly inadequate. He arrived at noon. They gave him liquids three hours later. (Three hours later. Prior to that he was seated and waiting. He repeatedly had to offer an armory of his medical history and any allergies (at the VA his records would have been on file). After he was given fluids, he was ignored for many hours. Finally at ten p.m. he was told he was being discharged. He complained about lust and hunger (he'd been there since noon) and was told there were snack machines in the lobby. He won't be footing the bill, the VA will blame it up. But he argues (I guess rightly) that the overhaul was short and that, at best, the for-profit hospital should be paying for an hour's care. (He suspects the VA will be charged for theentire duration and considers it an instance of fake and waste. Second, Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chair Patty Murray will be touring the Portland VA Medical Center this coming Tuesday to learn from veterans and critique the work at that VA: