VA healthcare has again demonstrated that the purpose of the VA is to grow the agency and support its employees – not provide healthcare to veterans. An AP article today, printed on page A14 of The Villages Daily News, tells the story about the VA program to provide service dogs to disabled veterans. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...tFjcAD9AH9RAO1

Congress authorized a program to provide service dogs to veterans in 2001. The VA promptly set up a staff to administer the program, advertised it on the VA web site, funded studies to determine benefits and problems for both the vet and the dog. What it DID NOT do is provide service dogs to veterans. To date, it has provided a grand total of two dogs in eight years! The VA has stated that it will seek additional funds from congress so that in addition to maintaining its staff, web-site, studies, etc; it may be able to actually get some service dogs to some vets. No commitment to action to date and certainly no consideration of cutting down the overhead so the vets could actually benefit.

This is a program that is repeatedly held up as a model of the efficiency/effectiveness of government run healthcare. As I have noted elsewhere, the VA healthcare system is set up to ration healthcare, not provide it. If this is what you want, then by all means support Obama and Obamacare. But realize that you may get what you wished for.

First of all, in response to your post I do not support Obama or Obamacare or whatever you call it. I do, however, support the VA and to say they don't do for the veterans is way off base. My husband has had nothing but stellar care from them and has medical equipment that is top of the line and is furnished and maintained by them. I'm sorry if your experience with them has been lacking, but don't denigrate the whole system if you are unhappy. He has always been treated with the utmost care and respect whether in Gainesville or TV or Texas by everyone there from the janitors, clerks, nurses, resident doctors, therapists, to staff doctors. He is not treated like an intrusion to their day or a waste of their time as in some places. It really doesn't matter what delivery system you have for care, not everyone is going to ever be happy nor is everyone going to be unhappy. Nothing is perfect nor will it ever be.

Dilly, As I have said before, I am glad you are happy with the care your husband has received from the VA. I admit, I am amazed that if your husband has been a patient at the VA hospital in Gainesville, you were not horrified by the six bed wards, with patients mixed w/o regard to the potential for disease communication.

In any case, his good care or my lack of it has nothing to do with this thread. My purpose in starting this thread was to show that the VA has taken millions of dollars intended to provide service dogs and has instead funded new positions, studies, etc over a period of eight years. The 'Six Million Dollar Man' was a highly successful 1970's television show. Today, the two dogs provided to date by the VA are six million dollar dogs!

If that is acceptable to you, then continue your defense of the efficiency of the VA.

Ok, so this program was set up in 2001 and hasn't been fully funded since its inception, but you are faulting an administration that has only been in office for 8 months???

No, I am not faulting an administration, but I am faulting a government agency that is supposed to be a model of efficient delivery of healthcare. This is not a Republican or Democrat thing, it is government bureaucracy in its usual state of inaction. We need less, not more of this.