Congratulations all you clash for clunkers recipients. You may very well be driving your lovely new car at the expense of veterans all across America. I find it ironic that just after President Obama entered office and started doling out money to the big banks, wall street and car companies that low-income veterans entitled to travel pay so they can get to and from their medical appointments at a V.A hospital are getting the shaft.
Here’s what’s happening. Veterans were usually recompensed in cash for travel immediately after having had their medical appointments. Very early in the year this still occurred then as Obama gave money to the rich, those who needed it most were denied any cash compensation. First the V.A. lowered the amount it would pay out in cash. If a veteran’s travel pay (based upon distance traveled) was $55, for example, and the new arbitrary threshold was $50, the V.A. told the vet it would send him a check. The turnaround time was cited as two-weeks which meant that a veteran would have to wait two weeks before he got the money he needed to get to the V.A. and back home the two weeks prior.
Soon the two-week wait became three and now it’s up to five or six. Simultaneously, the cash compensation threshold was lowered to $10 so anyone entitled to $11 in travel pay would have to wait up to six weeks! Remember the people allowed to get the travel pay are those who have proved to be low-income. So then the question comes, how is the veteran supposed to get to his appointments and back home if he can’t afford it? And, of course, the answer is, he can’t. So not only is the veteran being shafted when it comes to travel pay compensation, he’s being shafted on his medical care as well.
The bottom line here is that someone always has to pay. In this case it’s the veterans (again). What a disgrace. When people say our system needs fixing they aren’t kidding. It’s just too bad that the brain trust of America is so corrupted by corporate greed on absolutely every level that no one person or group of people can ever hope to dig out of the muck. Our legislators are an abomination for allowing this to happen again and again and again …
Update: Dec. 24, 2009: My veteran friend tells me that just this week he learned that travel pay cash reimbursement went up to $100. That’s terrific. Hopefully it will last longer than just Christmas week.
All you people posting on here about needing travel pay are leeches on society. I dont tfeel you should be paid to go to the doctor. I served 14 years in the Corps (2 tours in Iraq) and no one ever gave me anything. I am eligible for it but I dont take advantage of the system. Your health is just that! Your health. It is your responsibility. Thats why we have medicaid and medicare. If you dont like the services you get at the VA, go somewhere else. Its not like you dont have options. I wish they would do away with it all together. I have already bombarded my congressman with the issue. Talk about economy and budgetissues. Yea right!
Good for you, Lyle, that you don’t need, want or take benefits of any kind. I hardly think it’s fair to send someone to war and then expect him or her to pay for her own health care when they get their legs blown off. In this country, the “options” you speak of are nonexistent for a good percentage of the population. I personally believe tha,t in many cases, the people who MAKE wars (congress) should be the ones who FIGHT wars.
As a veteran and an agent cashier I Am deeply ashamed to witness first hand the greed of other veterans I see the same veterans who are of better mind and body then I am show up at the va just to collect travel pay then I get to run into them on a weekly basis at a grocery store acrost town
Never mind that I pay them for there supposed 75 to 200 mile drive every day never mind the fact that they have to earn less then 18kyr but they drive BMW and Cadillacs
It’s a shame that some people take advantage of the system that way. Perhaps one day all the fraudsters in our society, including the ones operating in Congress and taking bribes from corporate giants, will be held accountable for their actions.
Does anyone know when the law was passed that says you can’t get travel pay for a walk-in appointment?I’d also like to know the public law number or whatever it is that I can look at.I’m going to research this and contact the responsible parties and see what compelled them to once again screw the veterans.Thanks, Bob
Sorry, Bob, I don’t know what the policies are anymore. At the time I regularly accompanied my veteran friend, the travel pay situation was changing almost weekly and not for the better. I do seem to recall that travel pay for walk-ins (at that time) was only permitted for a one-way trip.
This article is false…I am an agent cashier for the VA Hospital and we do pay at the window and there is no limits…they only pay to the closest cllinic…I have worked 4 years as one and i have never turned a veteran down for cash payments if they would rather have a check than that is their choice which will take up to 4 – 6 weeks.
This article is NOT false. I witnessed first hand the things I wrote about at the clinics we were visiting. Secondly, it would help if you actually took note of the date on which the post was written. If things changed since then and they are now doing the right thing, then so be it. GREAT! BUT, at the time, they were screwing over the vets, something they tend to do a lot. Also, it should be noted that the person at the counter at the one clinic was not so generous as you. She went out of her way to PUNISH vets if she perceived they had “an attitude”! She should have been fired.
Just spoke with a woman in a VA clinic, which opened near us. She said the VA is attempting to get vets to go to the closest clinic, near the Vets home, for treatment. You can choose to go elsewhere, but the VA will ONLY pay travel to the closest clinic; which can provide the service.
This is very true. They will only pay for travel to the closest clinic. The problem with that is that not ALL services are available at the closest clinic and vets must travel to clinics further afield. That makes for an inherently unfair system to those who legitimately need the travel pay.
Travel pay is a terrible progam, coming from a Oif Veteran who qualifies for it as a patient and as a employee of the VA. It is a abused program, where patients often give false addresses, and purposely try to set up needless apptments like BP checks and such just to get it several times a week. The VA spends billions a year on this program for Veterans who ALREADY get 100% free health care. We could spend this money on more providers so we can get patients in earlier, or operating longer hours to accomidate the younger veterans who work 9-5′s.
I do not know about you but my health care was not free. I earned my health care for the service I did in Iraq. I will not disagree with you on veterans have been abusing the travel pay system, but I feel this travel pay system is to help us veterans that suffer from war injuries to get to our appointments and home with out worrying about gas, food or even a place to stay depending on how far we live from the VA.
I am a Veteran who is eligible for travel pay. I have also worked in the travel pay section. Veterans are still getting their money and do not have to wait. The only exceptions to having to wait is if the travel office is, for some reason, closed (clerk out sick, etc.) or the Veteran ***chooses*** to request travel pay mailed to him/her. Otherwise, you just walk up to the window and fill out a form and have your money (almost instantly.)
I am happy to hear that travel pay to veterans may have been improved since I wrote my article. I can assure you that at the time the article was written, veterans were NOT receiving their travel pay in a timely fashion which caused many great hardship.
I am also a veteran, and was sent to a fee basis Doctor. I went to my VA facility to get travel pay, and was told I would have to send it in and wait.
This was 3 weeks ago, and I have not been paid, and I have to go to the Doctor again….this isn’t cheap. It is a 4 hour drive – one way.
Perhaps, one day, the people making the laws will have to experience the repercussions of their actions first hand. Only then will they come to understand the hardships that common folk are forced to go through. Too bad the V.A. just can’t be consistent in making things easy for their veterans.
I just had a c&p exam and I got 38 dollars in travel pay. My last c&p exam in 06 netted me only 17 dollars. Who was president then?
I think you really missed the gist of the article which was that Obama has given away tons of money to companies resulting in the pain and suffering to veterans who have to wait ridiculous amounts of time to be reimbursed, thus forcing them to miss needed appointments! Add to that the fact that the V.A. keeps changing its travel pay reimbursement requirements. I know this for a fact because I accompany a friend there every single week. He had to wait 2 months to be reimbursed this last time. It’s absurd.