To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Demand better and more timely care for our veterans.
The United States sends our veterans to war, and when our veterans return home with mental health issues, such as PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), the government fails miserably in providing adequate and timely health services and compensation. From Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, our veterans deserve better. Whatever resources are needed to streamline treatment, claims processing, and counseling, we need to demand that Congress provide emergency priority funding, giving our best to those who gave their best for us.
Why is this important?
While the VA has increased recognition of mental health issues, the time it takes to process claims and to provide treatment often takes far to long. In many instances it takes 6-9 months for our veterans to get the help they need, and up to two years for claims that have been denied due to non-specific dates and times of their mental health claim. The VA admits to being overwhelmed, and in some areas, they are literally "buried" in paperwork. Our government foolishly sent our soldiers into harms way, without anticipating the overall costs, both financially and physically. We owe our veterans the very best, and Congress needs to allocate as much funding as is necessary to greatly improve these problems. With 22 veteran committing suicide each day in 2010, and with more deaths from suicide than there were in combat in 2012, we are failing in our responsibilities to our veterans. . As a nation, we owe a debt to those that have served this nation, now is the time to demand better from our government.