Didn't mean to start a lot of hostility...maybe it is just me.
I joined the military during a time when you and your family got free medical and dental care from a hospital run by military doctors and nurses. My father, visiting mi in Alaska, had a heart attack, and the only reason he survived was because of the emergency room on base. There is no more emergency rooms on most bases, and you can only get minimal doctor's visits/care. Dental is no longer free for the families. Dental for military members is no longer free when I retire, and the goverment even gets to decide what services I can and can not get when I get out. Almost all of these services that are now denied the military and their family is to save money for projects like 'The Bridge to Nowhere' so politicians can get re-elected and to pay for the millions in free medical, SS, medicare, Border Patrol agents, court costs to prosecute Border Patrol agents who do their jobs, and more.
Maybe it is just me who thinks something has gone wrong somewhere when Americans, especially military members who have gone to and served faithfully in some of the world's worst he!!-holes, have to go to other countries to recieve the medical care their families need. This nation is supposed to be the end-all, be-all of technological and medical advancement....but what good is that when AMERICANS can not GET IT?
Maybe I am the only one who sees a problem with insurance companies and hospitals having lobbyists who pump BILLIONS into the pockets of politicians to ensure their is no legislation that prohibits them from continuing to jack up the cost of health care to the point where you have to sell your soul as well as everything you own for 1 prolonged stay in the hospital while eliminating court awards/settlements for heinous negligence that ruins lives! Maybe I am the only one who sees a problem when Americans no longer have equal access and influence to/on our politicians, who are being bought lock, stock, and barrel by huge corporations through lobbyist pay-offs!
What we need is a national referendum that strips our politicians of the elitist entitlements that they have voted for themselves, that eliminates the divide betweet those who are suposed to work FOR US yet who live like kings compared to us, that eliminates the widespread practice of bribery called 'lobbyist/lobbying', that forces our representatives to send their kids to public schools like we are with no other options, that forces our Republicans to have the same medical care that we are forced to have.....I guarantee that if our Republicans were forced to face the same situation my friend does, legislation that would help lower the cost of medical care (stop protecting the insurance companies and medical/pharmacudical industries) would happen over-night!
But Yeah, maybe I am the only one who sees something wrong with the fact that the nation one of my buddies spent years defending and sacrificing for is now turning its back on him when he finally asks for something in return, the health-care his family needs. The sad thing is THIS is the nation that we are still defending! For what? Why should we defend a nation that embraces invaders and hands them everything for free at our expense then tells us to go f#@&-off when we need simple health care, the same health care we are paying for so the invaders can get it for free?! Why fight for a nation that has made your home too expensive and costly for YOU to live in it just so politicians can buy votes and ensure they stay in office, securing the very best for themselves - a quality of life they are helping ensure YOU will never be able to afford yet YOU provide for THEM and the illegals our Republicans are selling our country out to?!
Forgive me if I am a little pi$$ed and see a problem unlike anyone else, that America seems to be what Rome became - more of a dream than a real place, something our nation once stood for but that now only exists in some vision. To the world - bring us your tired, your poor, your criminal....just not Americans - There's very little room for you here anymore! Shut-up, pay-up, keep your politicians in power/office,and if you need something, go to some country!
Right now, I am still serving my country. I have a disease that allows me to continue to serve but one that will grow worse to the point where I will be in a wheel chair. My wife has heart problems. I continue to serve, staying on, working through pain, not only because I love what I do and have never wanted to do anything but serve my country - to defend her and the 'greatness' that is/was the U.S., but I now continue, just as long as I can, because I know once I take the uniform off my family and I will be abandoned. We will be cast to the side, and I will most probably find myself in the same situation my friend finds himself in now. You see, you don't get rich serving your country. I joined years ago with the promise from my country that, in exchange for service and for the sacrifice of giving up what I could have made on the outside that my country would take care of me and my family. I kept my end of the bargain! So did my friend! So WTF happened to my country?
Whatever - that's the last post I am going to make on this subject/in this forum! There's no use in b!tching about it. Adapt and over-come! Hu-ah!