Michael Terrell? Anyone heard from him in awhile?

Where's that obnoxious fat bastard Michael Moore when you need him? Oh, I forgot, he *hates* veterans so would be of no help. Hope you get back to full health again soon, Michael. It's pretty shitty and dispiriting being laid-up, as I know from first hand experience myself.

Bill Gates is probably behind it.

Michael Moore just shipped the patients he found off to Cuba, which does ha ve universal health care, and about the same life expectancies as the US.

The UK would have done as well, but the air-fares are higher and the wealth disparity less dramatic.

It sounds as if Mike would find any such trip an unpeasant experience, and he might need oxygen to survive it. Canada might be an option - but it is a long way from Florida. Or we could just get up a collection and buy him so me attention ... some of us have been known to boast that we have that kind of money.

Hey, how much would it cost to get MT transport and seen by a cardiologist in private practice? Not next month or next week but like ASAP, immediately, right now.

He's been very helpful to me in the past here and I come from a military family and know the VA sucks balls. "The kids these days" do GoFundMe crowd-sourcing for medical expenses all the time; the GF and I aren't the biggest ballers in the world but I know we could pitch in at least $200 of it

I could pitch in rather more. We need somebody physically close to Mike - amdx might be close enough to do it - to act as an anchor or conduit.

Where I come from the up-front money would be in the vicinity of $500, and getting him to the diagnostician would on top of that.

There are private ambulance/medical transport services in the US for people who have mobility issues that require that level of care; the best known in the Boston area at least is Fallon AS. But yeah given what that costs for a private party it's an option of last resort

I'm all for trying to get Micheal help. That was my original plea about is this a VA thing. Thinking we could get his congressman on it. But it seems now he is past the VA and now has "Veterans Choice" which, as I understand he now has an appointment with a local cardiologist.

Just reread his post, he met with the original local cardiologist, so now looking for a VA appointment?

From his post,

"I haven't been on here for months. The VA told me right away that they couldn't see me in a reasonable timeframe, so they set up a 'Veteran's Choice' account for me. Then they referred me to a local Cardiologist. They did an EKG and looked at my medications, and told me they would schedule me, as soon as possible. That was five months ago.

I spent hours on the phone with workers at the VA as they tried to find someone to treat me. A big problem is all the snowbirds who tie up the local VA clinics during the cooler months. It seems like all of them manage to need appointments while they vacation in Florida. The VA needs to send some doctors south for the same time period, to help with the seasonal overloading. The local VA clinic that I use has 100 exam rooms, yet my appointments are 9 months apart, rather than the three that they should be. They had a 30% unused capacity when the clinic first opened, about seven years ago."

So Michael do you have an appointment date? Who said they would schedule you as soon as possible. Who is your congressman, or, what city are you in so we can figure it out. You tell us what you would want to happen. Mikek

If you can find one that will take cash, probably $500 ($2-300 with insurance) for the first consultation and maybe a couple hundred more for blood tests (same sort of discount for insurance companies). If it gets into real tests, you're talking four to five digits. I probably went five yesterday and they didn't actually do anything (gotta go for a do-over in a month).

What happens after the first consultation? The cardiologist is going to want the answer to that before the first appointment.

The VA finally set an appointment. In January.

Holy crap! Why don't you move in with JT for a while and test the AZ system. The FL VA system is obviously still run by Obamaites.

Single-payer U.S. federal government health care, hooray!

James Arthur

Absolutely. That's what we have to look forward to.

The principal whistleblower was in Phoenix and heads _have_ rolled here. Obama put some of them right back on... but, fortunately, Trump trumped >:-} ...Jim Thompson

If you live long enough.

puts the USA at 31 in the pecking order, marginally ahead of Cuba. You last about four years longer in the top-ranking countries.

You know why the VA is so poor, because it only handles a small percentage of the population and it doesn't just pay for the care, it provides the care in it's own facilities. That is a silly idea on face value. Does Google have its own medical system for its employees? I bet they have a comparable number people enrolled than the VA treats vets, but it would never occur to Google to build their own hospitals. Why should it make sense for the VA to have its own facilities? Obviously you think the VA doesn't do a good job.

My understanding is a "single payer" health care system will use the same medical facilities in use today. The care won't change, just the payment system. Facilities will be regulated in much the same way as they are under Medicare and there can be facilities that are outside the financial umbrella of medicare just as there is today. No one would stop you from using your own money to pay for healthcare. But there would be payment for anyone in the US for healthcare provided by participating facilities.

Yeah, universal healthcare... that sounds so terrible.