Good point - very often the VA are not open on weekends. Granted some branches & offices may be, but not all. For example the doctor that services me does not work weekends. So yes I have to use vacation time.
If you already have a time for it,may I suggest you do it. Just to rule out problems. Also so you don't suddenly wake up feeling worse than you did, and find out something horrible.
Shout out to @Dinner for telling me about the VA care...I went on Monday after driving 7 hours from NorCal. Turns our that I was rated at 50 percent disability so my insurance is free of cost for life! Goodbye shitty ass $5k deductible!
50%? You only need 10% more to start getting a VA Disability check for the rest of your life. When you get your introductory exam by the doctor tell her you want your hearing checked and tell her/him about your other health concerns. You just need 10% more and slight hearing lose between now and when you enlisted will get you that. A 100% rating gets you free dental for life (along with your spouse or dependents) along with $3200 a month for the rest of your life. 60% gets you something like $1800 a month every month until you die. Unlike SSI DI (what John Castle is on) with VA Disabilty ratings you can still work and never lose you benefits including cash payments no matter how much you make. Seriously, tell the doctor EVERYTHING, no matter how slight, have them test for it, and go for the pay out. You know you could use a few extra grand a month and best of all you truly are eligible for it as long as the illness exists and is documented.
Yeah, no co-pays on anything and no monthly premium payments so you just got a leg up on most Americans right there. Find a way to get a few more perfect. Do you snore? Sleep apnea is automatically a 50% which would get you up to 100% (I got that). Hearing lose is 10%. Irritable bowl syndrom (upset stomach) something like 25%, low back pain 20%, PTSD 30%-100% depending on symptoms, there is a long list. Best of all as long as the illness is real you are owed it as an entitlement so you would not be gaming the system just using it as intended. Find a few more percentage points (have them do a full blood examine and check for high blood pressure or cholesterol, talk about what illnesses family members have had then let them screen you for it) then enjoy the ful $3200 extra a month for the rest of your life. Oh, it goes up when you get married or have kids so do yourself a favor and make sure you get the max you are entitled to.
I kept telling you that you needed to go so I am glad you did. Oh, your VA Disability rating will also give you a +20 points disabled vet bonus when applying for any government job. Points top out at 100 so plus twenty is huge. Finish that water worker certification and you are a shoe in. They will start you out at $52,000 a year pkus over time then you you add in the VA Disabilty money you will be very comfortable. Best of all your military time will count towards your pension so you will be truly set for retirement.
Actually, these days you only need 30 percent to get VA compensation for life. A chick I used to work with pre-Navy has a husband who was rated at 30 percent and he's getting 500 bucks a month (I get about 800) and he's gotten it since 2010 when he got out. I guess it was different when you separated cuz there were a shit ton more boots on the ground and they were trying to be cheap asses.
Hell, talk to an advocate (VFW or what not, they are located on the first floor by enrollment in VA La Jolla) and see if you can apoeal the 50% rating. Often times the evaluators will default to 50% to try to stop people from reaching the magic 60% rating) . On appeal you very well might get a higher rating and best of all they will owe you backpayments up to two years on your disability claim. Even at 60% that would meab you'd get a lump sum check of $43,200 along with $1800 per month forever. So why not try?
From what I've been able to gather, it really hinges on who does your paperwork. When I was in machinist school, the guy who was the welding instructor (and a Vietnam Vet) went to the VA to see if he could get the VA to pick up his prescription costs. He went in, talked to a person at the desk, and before he finished explaining his situation, someone had stuck their head out of an office and said, "Were you in 'Nam? Get in here!" He goes in the office, the guy asks him a few questions, and then starts writing stuff down, telling him to see specific people (because they're the only ones who have a clue) at another VA clinic, especially a particular doctor. He then goes to see those people, and when he comes out, not only can he claim full disability (if he wants it), but the money he qualifies for (not including a generous lump-sum payment) is more than he's presently earning (working two jobs). Naturally, he takes it, because why the fuck wouldn't you?
The VA gives me zero percent for my hearing loss. I do get a discount on hearing aids though. The hearing loss is official/documented, it just isn't worth any dollar amount. And they do not "grandfather" any injuries. In other words I didn't even go to the VA to get a disability screening until after I was retired from the military for a few years (long story behind that). Turns out I am at 50 percent for mostly mental problems. But they can only pay my disability from the time I filed the claim, not from the time I should have been collecting, which was the day I began my retirement. So I lost out on about 40,000 dollars worth of disability. Anyway I got rated at 50 percent. Anything 50 percent and over means in addition to my retirement pension, I get 50 percent of my pension added to my total. Let's say my pension is 1,200 dollars. A 50 percent disability means I get 600 dollars added to my 1,200. HOWEVER if I didn't meet that 50 percent watermark (let's say I was at 40 percent) then all that would mean is 40 percent of my 1,200 would be tax-exempt. So if you are retired military and don't get above a 50 percent rating, all you get is a tax break. Go figure! One good thing is no matter what your disability percentage (as a retiree) they cannot take it away no matter how much you make in your civilian job. 90 percent disability means your retirement pension is almost doubled - let's say you are in a wheelchair. Get a job as a GS worker making 50K or a civilian contractor making six figures and you still get that pension plus 90 percent. But for you folks who served faithfully but didn't retire (my son is among you) I think it's great that you get free medical treatment (and possibly disability ratings). Every vet deserves this and every other benefit too. You all earned it!
When I actually filed around 2010 (several years after retirement) the sandbox was still going pretty strong, so all combat vets (like myself) got streamlined service. From the time I filed to the time I started getting disability pay was really fast. The big game-changer is electronic data-bases. If you served in "the computer age" it's much easier to research your medical and personnel records.
I do not understand why free medical care for life for anyone who served in the military is an issue (and I'd extend it to their immediate family as well). That's the least we can do for those who've served.
The only situation where family members (dependents) get medical care is active duty or retired. My example my wife and kids got free medical while I was in. Once I retired myself and my wife are on Tricare (very cheap insurance, basically free) but once the kids hit a certain age they were not eligible. It would be INCREDIBLY expensive to pay all vets and their families free medical for life versus just retired military. Maybe discount medical care for honorably discharged veterans is for now the best compromise that everyone can live with. Personally I feel (and recent experiences dealing with the military on a daily basis) that serving one or two enlistment contracts then getting out while still young enough to get a start on a new career works out very well. Having too many 35 year old beat-down injured burnouts just "running the clock out" on their military career to get that lifetime payout doesn't benefit anyone IMO.
Hell, I'd argue we need to extend that to those who got kicked out too after a certain point. The vast majority of incidents have to do with booze, which far too many use to self medicate....especially overseas. The Navy in particular hesitates on handing out pills cuz you can't hold a weapon on watch for a year afterward. In my case, I got cleared but because USS Somerset is the Naval equivalent of Amazon Prime Day, no one bothered to actually send me to get weapon qual'd, while you got the same six people doing roving watch and what have you every duty day.
yes you will be taxed on your disability as far as I know. Don't you want to help pay for the next generation of vets?
Yeah. Don't know what the tax issues will be, but it's income, so you've got to report it. Fun fact: When you file for unemployment, you've got to pay taxes on the measly amount of money you get for being laid off. Given that you could go from making thousands of dollars a week to just $300 (before tax, in TN), this seems like adding insult to injury to me.
Yep. And there are plenty of relatively healthy folks running out the clock, too; those twatpigeons should've been the first offered early outs back when the Navy was gutting the careers of relatively young and enthusiastic sailors.
Hey, maybe if politicians knew the full cost of war ahead of time, they'd be less likely to send people off to die in them! No matter how good the care active duty soldiers and their families are given (and, yes, I'll agree that it needs to be improved, even within today's limits), we can't predict the impact that military service is going to have on an individual and their family. I would rather see the family of a military vet want for nothing, than I would us worrying about if a service person deserved this or that based on something like how long they served, when they served, etc. One of the guys I went to high school with was your classic fuck up. Never seemed to do anything right, nobody every thought that he'd amount to anything, etc. After high school he joined the military, and I don't know what they did to him, but he turned into a model citizen. He became an officer, family man, etc., and shortly before he was due to leave the service got killed in Iraq. I don't give a goddamn what it might cost, but his kids deserve free healthcare and college. It was our fuck up that caused him to be sent to Iraq and later die, it was the military which turned him from a laughing stock of our school into a model citizen. We owe his family that much.
If you die while on active duty I think your family is pretty much set for life, especially if it's a combat related death but I don't remember for sure. It's been a while since I retired.
Oldfella is right...the widow(er)s and children of fallen servicemen are taken care of. But I'm with you. I'd much prefer we weren't as eager to send our people to be killed. That would be the best thing.
So after taking some migraine med my mom told me about, the phantom pains (minus the niggling spot in my shin) have gone. Not a thing in my arms or legs! The pressure is still there on the other side of my head from before, but the stabbing pain hasn't returned. The bad news is I've had nausea for three days now. In desperation, I even took the CBD edibles I had in my drawer and been in bed all day except to let my dog out and I STILL feel sick. Good thing I won't need to pay outta pocket for the colonoscopy.
Also, this was originally a green room thread, and I don't mind if it gets moved back there, mostly for any wandering vet that may come by and find out about the info @Dinner told me about.
It's good....mostly changing my diet to eat more fiber and exercise. On rare occasions, they'll do surgery for these if it's too much bleeding but the docs said to try this first. Otherwise, my insides looked especially clean and they didn't need to biopsy anything which they would have had they suspected cancer. Of the ass, of course. So, I ain't dead yet
