The first time I heard Diane Benson speak about the lack of health care for our serving military and Veterans was in September, 2005. That was before her son, Latseen was severely injured near Kirkuk while serving as an airborne trooper in the 101st Airborne Division. It was before she had filed for her first run for our sole U.S. House seat.
Since that time, Benson has learned a remarkable amount about this complex set of issues. She has spent far more time working on this than all our serving legislators, potential legislators and the staff of the Anchorage Daily News combined. And she'd be the last person to complain openly about this seeming lack of concern by others about a problem that is all too real to Diane Benson and her family.
Yesterday I criticized the Anchorage Daily News for their lame question and answer period with Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the ADN editors office about military and Veterans' health care. Today I'm going to praise them for finally addressing aspects of this issue that is so very important to Alaskans. An excellent editorial appears in today's ADN, from which I'll quote the main bullet points:
• The Guard and VA should make sure some Native soldiers of both officer and enlisted ranks are fully versed in health care benefits and how to claim them. The returning Native veterans may be better able to deliver the message on the home front, via friends and relatives. And in Yupik, if need be.
• The VA and Indian Health Service should collaborate to ensure veterans get care close to home. Most villages have health clinics that could provide some basic care to veterans -- provided the clinics are reimbursed by the VA. That makes sense. As Sen. Murkowski and others argued, let's have the money follow the veteran, not force the vet to follow the money by navigating complicated bureaucracies.
• Make travel and living expenses more widely available. As of now the VA pays for Alaskans to travel if they have at least a 30 percent disability and an income of less than $12,000 a year. These rules don't account for Bush Alaska's long distances and low incomes.
• Get out to the Bush -- at least the hub communities -- more often with information about post-traumatic stress disorder, effects on families, VA benefits.
No place they call home should be too far afield for Alaska's vets to receive the health care they've earned. If that means millions more in the VA's Alaska budget, so be it. Sen. Murkowski should stay on the case, and Alaskans should back her up.
BOTTOM LINE: Alaska Natives and other vets who live in Bush Alaska should get their due -- even if it costs more to deliver.
To this I'd add THOROUGH medical testing to all Alaska National Guard personnel for exposure to depleted uranium and other toxins, immediately upon their return to Alaska.
photo - Alaska Veterans Aviation Outreach's Maurice Bailey with Diane Benson, October 7
1 comment:
Yes, good editorial -- and good for Diane, and good for all the other politicians for climbing aboard the bandwagon of concern for the veterans of the outrageous, illegal, and immoral invasion and occupationm of Iraq.
I hope the groundswell of concerrn that Ms. Murkowski (and Ms. Benson and everyone else raising the issue) specifically demands intense research into the long-term deleterious effects of Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions.
We have not only damaged our own vets with DU (see the statistics from the 1st Gulf War), we have poisoned the Iraq environment for years to come.
Some day, when we have treated all the vets and paid reparations to the innocent, we will try the President and his cronies (and his sympathizers in Congress) for war crimes.
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