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LETTER TO EDITOR: DON'T MESS WITH VA HEALTHCARE

SYSTEM -- Wife of vet doesn't want HMO

interference in VA healthcare.

 

 

I normally don't post letters to the editor, but this one is excellent...especially the last line.

The letter refers to this news story...
http://vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/
nfJUN07/nf061907-3.htm

Letter here... http://www.blueridgenow.
com/article/20070625/NEWS/706250
301/1017/OPINION01/NEWS/Don_t_
mess_with_VA_health_care_system

Letter below:

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Don't mess with VA health care system

To The Editor:

Your Tuesday article about the government's intention to convert part of the VA health care system into the dreaded HMO, and veterans groups' understandable resistance, dismayed me.

If ever there were a case of going backward, this is it.

Anyone who remembers horror stories coming from VA hospitals prior to the Reagan administration would be astonished to visit today's VA hospital in Oteen.

Within the last year, my Vietnam vet husband has been hospitalized and operated on twice.

Never have I witnessed such compassionate, conscientious and efficient treatment.

Not once have I encountered an arrogant doctor, a snippy receptionist or a nurse with an attitude.

To think our country's loyal military servants might go back to a Dickensian world of intolerable waiting periods and Catch-22 reasons why they can't have treatment they need is unconscionable.

By the grace of God, these soldiers came back from wars they were consigned to; let's not torture them with for-profit managed care.

"I'm not too worried," my husband said after he read the article.

"Why is that?" I said.

"Because veterans are the only special-interest group I know of in which every single member knows how to use a gun."

Jennifer L. Holmes

Hendersonville

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Larry Scott  --