Caring for Grandpa

Memorial Day doesn’t have to be just one day, and my previous post about veterans’ health got me wondering about the care that my grandpa received from Veterans’ Affairs (VA). My grandpa served in World War II on a minesweeper for the U.S. Navy. Take a look at him and a shipmate in the photo below. He’s on the left. WWII sailors were lookers, weren’t they!?

I gave my mom a ring on Monday and asked her to tell me a little bit about the care that my grandpa received.

She told me that my grandpa didn’t actually seek assistance from the VA until much later in life when the expenses for his care and medications became too cumbersome for him to handle out-of-pocket. You see, my grandpa was a lucky veteran. Having suffered no debilitating war injuries or trauma, he was able to work a civilian job for many years after the war, and his pension and Medicare benefits covered a good deal of his health care costs. According to my mom, he paid remaining expenses with his own money as he did not seek out any assistance that he didn’t feel he needed. I’d like to think, knowing what a kind man he was, that he probably felt that not using his VA benefits meant more benefits for another veteran in far greater need.

As my grandpa’s health deteriorated, his health care costs got more expensive. It got to a point where the out-of-pocket expenses became too much, and he requested supplemental assistance from the VA. Without remembering exact details, my mom recalls mountains of paperwork to get the ball rolling, and even more paperwork every time a new medication was added or one was changed. She also recalls the VA questioning whether my grandpa’s heart condition was war-related even though the general understanding is that it shouldn’t have mattered. She remembers that it was a headache to get assistance, but my grandpa was no doubt extremely grateful.

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), in response to the Texas VA controversy, stated that, “Too many veterans see the VA as a bureaucracy with the singular goal of denying services and benefits to veterans.” With more and more veterans today seeking VA benefits, this system needs to be fixed. A summary of VA benefits can be found here.

(Image: Becky Ramsey)