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There's probably a high correlation of PTSD incidence in veterans with homelessness. In that case the United States does operate a funding program through the VA which can help provide for those veterans.

https://www.va.gov/homeless/gp...

Relatively few enlisted men and women are college graduates (4.1%) or have an advanced degree (0.5%). More than nine-in-ten (94.0%) are high school graduates and some of them have attended some college.

Obviously some of this is due to how young they are, having not had the chance to go yet.

There's also some information about post-discharge education attainment here.

Overall, the percentage of Veterans with a Bachelor’s degree was lower than that of non-Veterans throughout the decade.

The difference is not that big, but keep in mind that college is free for veterans and all they need to do is put in the time. One might imagine what it would be like if they were on equal footings with everyone else.

If the records are lost, then the Air Force benefits. Cases are closed, investigations are upended, liability ceases.

This happens every so often. I have a friend that was chemically burned by Agent Orange. The Army claimed that his records were destroyed in a fire and denied him 100% disability status for almost 50 years. The story changed when he became good friends with a retired general. A few pulled strings later and voila, documentation of his injuries suddenly appeared.

What dollar figure are you attaching to the dead American soldiers? To the soldiers with limbs blown off? To the soldiers with PTSD who come home and start beating their children?

$182.3 Billion for 2017

The interesting question is how long can this last before we reach a level that is not affordable to the majority of the demographic that is being serviced.

Care to guess what happens at that point? New construction doesn't sell, developers go bankrupt, new construction is sold at auction for lower prices. Then the new units available at lower prices push down prices of other housing, which makes purchase more affordable, which results in renters buying, which curbs rent prices.

Unless of course, large financial companies and well-connected donors are threatened by that circumstance.

Then, the central bank will step in, through its many channels, to put a floor under rental prices ("So I think if we spent enough money, got enough of a hit right now, it would look like a floor on house prices, and we might have something every bit as good as a floor on house prices."). The multiple government housing agencies (Fannie, Freddie, FHA, VA, USDA, etc) can also step in to influence the rental market, as they did the housing market.

Blackstone is a company securitizing rental flows and selling them. They are the largest private equity company in the world ("By both profit measures, the first quarter set quarterly records for Blackstone, the world’s largest private-equity firm").

The former head of the US central bank, Bernanke, is now employed by Citadel, a massive hedge fund.

My point is simply this: house prices did not revert to historical norms because of the big players - donors - that would have been deleteriously impacted by it. With big players moving into the rental market, if something went wrong with their business plan, don't expect them not to use their clout to get the government and central bank to do something about it.

So after high school. every kid gets a free ride for four years to party and "study" philosophy? How would that provide any benefit to society?

Instead, how about offering some kind of tuition assistance in return for serving the country first; call it something like "the GI Bill"

For one, because we don't live in Starship Troopers land? (Remember: Service guarantees citizenship, kids!)

Second - because if you gave an engineering student four years of free tuition, he's still going to take engineering. The future pigfuckers, er, I mean politicians, will still study PolySci and Law. You're just making sure that (for instance) your Med students can actually take up family practices instead of going into plastic surgery because they need to repay their loans.

The really sad thing is, the cost of educating your entire population can be covered simply by deciding to build a few less bombs or maybe not have a base in every country on the planet.

All that said - the points about finding smaller and cheaper places is worth reinforcing. We all know that your high school "permanent record" is BS. Well, unless you're going to hobnob with the hoi palloi, where you got your degree doesn't count for crap either. Better to check and make sure they have a good program in what you're interested in.

so why not just make it free and stop squeezing students?

So after high school. every kid gets a free ride for four years to party and "study" philosophy? How would that provide any benefit to society?

Instead, how about offering some kind of tuition assistance in return for serving the country first; call it something like "the GI Bill"

You would think yet even with our taste some might even say our lust for violence if you watch anything from Hollywood or pop tv, yet what we see are troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD due to being in combat.

Of 1 million troops returning, 46% went in for treatment of the 46%, 48% was diagnosed with PTSD nearly half of those that sought treatment had PTSD. So on some level "fake violence" is not interpreted by the brain as violence. http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/...

http://www.veteransandptsd.com...

It indicates on some level the mind is conscious that a video game is just that and is able to not have lasting effects.

The GTA series in general has always given people an outlet. Ever wanted to hit a car that cut you off? Well in GTA it's perfectly ok for you to do it till your hearts content and it's out of your system. Just because I take great joy in forcing other drivers in GTA off the road doesn't mean I'll plow into the car next to me on the freeway.

Wrong.
  http://www.va.gov/opa/publications/archives/docs/history_in_brief.pdf
Sorry for the PDF link...

Age of an issue has no effect on its importance if the person is still in power and controversey over it isnt settled.

Well, Mrs. Clinton is not still in power. I know she's not much to look at, but in case you didn't notice the Secretary of State is currently a dude.

The controversy is non-existent. What is the issue exactly, that four people died in an American embassy in a country that had some shit going on at the time? That's horrible, but it is comparable to US military deaths that occur sadly far to often. Hell, more veterans committed suicide everyday in 2010 than this incident. Where is the outrage for not "supporting our troops" when they come home?

Was Bengahzi a problem, yes, four people died. Was it a big enough problem to justify the level of discourse about it, and let's be honest here, it was only if you want to discredit Hilary Clinton in case she runs for office. The irony of the situation is that anyone that would be swayed by arguments about Benghazi would be in the group of people that wouldn't vote for her anyway.

http://wwwcf.fhwa.dot.gov/exit... http://wwwcf.fhwa.dot.gov/exit... http://www.polytrauma.va.gov/d... http://www.wdtb.noaa.gov/scrip... http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.e... http://www.nestlegoodfoodgoodl... http://www.gd.gov.cn/jump.htm?... http://sasisa.ru/go_title.php?... http://4ygeca.com/index.php?na... http://www.stereohead.ru/?name... http://www.transtats.bts.gov/e... http://www.roc.noaa.gov/script...

As much as I hate to burst your "boo pharma, yay me!" bubble, the current batch of drugs, when taken properly(and that is the key) are almost as effective as condoms in preventing HIV transmission, and if used in conjunction with condoms, prevent probably about 99.9% of all infections. So yeah, obviously big pharma is trying to give everyone HIV. You cracked the case!

when House Speaker John Boehner inserts a provision into an unrelated bill to require the army to buy overpriced M1 tanks that they don't even want, that just happen to be built in his district, why exactly is that in any way beneficial to society?

It makes things — metal is poured, people retain (and improve) their skills at it and the many other things required to make the tank. I agree wholeheartedly, that it is wasteful — but not as wasteful (and destructive) than the endless subsidy.

People who lack the basic necessities of life do whatever it takes to acquire those necessities ...

but given that there are currently 3 unemployed people per open position

Citation needed... But, even we accept these numbers, why is it, that numerous immigrants — legal and otherwise — come to this country and manage to not only do rather well, but to support extended families back home? They are, we are told — by Democrats and certain Republicans alike — "taking jobs Americans would not do"... Of course, Americans don't need to take such jobs — various government programs provide the "safety net", that's more comfortable, than getting up in the morning.

If they can't work, and can't borrow the money because they've ruined their credit, they will steal those necessities

Oh, now the truth comes out... It is not the kind benevolence, that keeps you wanting to pay them — it is the fear of them robbing you... Makes sense.

But, no, the first option you listed — and dismissed so quickly — is perfectly practical. There is plenty of work to be done, but some of it pays less, than the government's handouts do — so, why bother?..

Christy Walton has produced over her career ...

Christy Walton's late husband provided for her — her current wealth was earned by him. She is the lucky beneficiary of our civilization's notion, that the dying are allowed to decide, who gets their wealth after them — whether she "deserves" it is not for us to decide, the monies are her husband's.

What makes her worthy of adulation, and him so heinous that you're willing to condemn him to death?

I am neither adulating over Ms. Walton, nor condemning anybody to death. I am not counting other people's monies — you do...

As for your poster-vet (assuming he actually exists and is not collecting the pay he duly earned in Vietnam), you've already admitted, that your own concern for such people stems not from compassion, but from fear, he would turn to robbing you.

But even if it were compassion — you are welcome to help him out, if his case seems compelling to you. You are even welcome to attempt to convince perfect strangers (like me) to help him out. What you are not entitled to (or should not be) is forcing me (at gun-point — implicit in all tax-collection) to pay for the guy, who did not manage to save for his own retirement in over 40 years since his military service ended...

The 440,000 would be employees and volunteers of the VA. The VA itself actually handles a lot more than that. There's 21.5 million veterans, of that 3.5 million receives disability compensation. Every veteran is eligible for health care in the VA system. So for 444,000 users of the VA information technology, 900,000 devices isn't that far fetched to handle the date for 3.5 million + veterans.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/veteranscensus1.html
http://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_department_of_veterans_affairs.pdf

Formerly responsible for procuring laptops/desktops for a Federal Agency (and still with the agency so posting anon).

All US Federal agencies are required to adhere to Trade Agreement Act (TAA) and Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) for procuring any sort of hardware. The VA has a very nice, easy to digest list of the approved countries http://www.va.gov/oal/business/fss/taa.asp/ that Federal agencies can procure equipment from. Almost all the major desktop/laptop vendors (Dell, HP, Toshiba, Samsung and Lenovo!) all have distribution centers in TAA compliant countries like Ireland or Mexico that perform final assembly and then ship to the US (meeting TAA/FAR requirements). Never mind that almost all the component pieces are manufactured in China, once the device is assembled and shipped from a TAA country, its good.

Lenovo being singled out for exclusion as a predominately Chinese owned company is not surprising. While short listing potential vendors, Lenovo was excluded for the potential(!) to have compromising components surreptitiously included with the final product. Of course this came from our parent agency security folks who promptly told us "you're not cleared to know why" when we pushed them on the subject. Its a shame as the Lenovo product line was very competitive in meeting our performance/cost requirements. Shortly after that exchange, NIST published BIOS hardening guidance http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-147/NIST-SP800-147-April2011.pdf [PDF Warning] which basically has you flash the BIOS with a known good before doing anything else with the machine, making many of the claims I heard irrelevant (backdoor in BIOS, on the chip, etc).

Or wonder if this is the true cause of aids. Not the barely detectable HIV.

HIV is very well studied and quite detectable when your viral load is high enough.

Pictures of HIV

Pictures of HIV

HIV isn't some exotic particle that scientists theorize *may* exist in some dimension.
It is something that we've observed with our own eyes and can replicate with (far too much) ease.

Don't spread nonsense about HIV not being the cause of AIDS unless you've got some peer reviewed research to back it up.

I don't have a "valid ID" even though I'm on disability.

Receives disability benefits but carries no valid photo ID?

No Georgia EBT card?

Required for "Food Stamps" and other services.

No Veterans Identification Card?

What IDs are acceptable?

Any valid state or federal government issued photo ID, including a FREE Voter ID Card issued by your county registrar's office or the Georgia Department of Driver Services (DDS)

A Georgia Driver's License, even if expired

Valid employee photo ID from any branch, department, agency, or entity of the U.S. Government, Georgia, or any county, municipality, board, authority or other entity of this state.

Valid U.S. passport ID

Valid U.S. military photo ID

Valid tribal photo ID

Georgia Voter Identification Requirements

"heros that are sent to war, they die and their families get a flag"

Wrong.

An LA times article on war death benefits:
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/apr/05/news/war-benefits5

And the department of veterans' affairs if you want to go reading more: http://www.vba.va.gov/survivors/agencies.htm

These things aren't generally just a flat lump sum payment. And a lot of it I'm sure military members can opt out of, probably for some negligible increase in base pay. Military families aren't left to twist in the wind when their service member dies. If you're father dies in military service, that shouldn't be treated like a winning Mega Millions lottery ticket. As in any job, if you're in the military it is up to you to ensure the financial security of your family. Many of the benefits are opt-in benefits like very cheap life insurance, matched savings plans, etc. If you are the type who doesn't save a dime, lives at the very edge of your means, and doesn't contribute to any kind of retirement/life insurance fund... you've screwed your families future over, not the U.S. Government. Even in the worst case scenario, families are at least compensated sufficiently (financially) for a few years. No amount of money is going to replace a lost loved one on an emotional scale, but seems to me that the U.S. military does a good job of making it plenty financially survivable.

Veterans typically are only eligible for "free healthcare" if they are poor or disabled. For example, the income threshold for benefits around here is $30k/yr. Above that, VA typically won't even consider you. Below that, they might assuming you have a service-related disability, a Purple Heart, or served in "high risk" (e.g. Agent Orange) theaters; even then, the "healthcare" typically is focused on your service-related disability. A veteran who is earning anything above around $15.00/hr isn't going to receive "free" health care. Don't believe me? Here: http://www.va.gov/healthbenefits/ Disclaimer: I am a disabled combat vet. I haven't bothered applying for VA health benefits because my employer benefits are light-years better than anything VA could offer. I can also get in to see a doctor when I'm sick, as opposed to waiting a month or two for an appointment.

SInce this procedure is still in the experimental stage very few people will get it for a long time. Meanwhile I suggest you ask to be screened for depression, the VA does treat it.

Okay you're really an idiot. It is one of the two active ingredients in agent orange. Jesus fucking christ people are stupid ... it is half of agent orange ... you don't even produce evidence that water is one of the ingredients of agent orange, you just speculate to make your joke. And you call this fucking hype? Seriously?

Nothing I said was about the content of their argument, but rather just the presentation of the argument. The article explains NOTHING about how dangerous 2,3,4-T is, and simply replies upon "it's a part of Agent Orange" to assert the harmfulness of the chemical.

If the article had included any of what you included as information (that it's one of two chemicals in Agent Orange, and that it breaks down into TCDD which is crazy harmful when heated) then there would have been no issue at all with the article.

This is not a substance argument, it is a FORM argument, and thus attacking me with "but it really is dangerous!" is completely beside the point, because that's not what I was arguing. I knew 2,3,4-T was harmful, the point was that the article doesn't establish WHY it is harmful in its own right.

Okay you're really an idiot. It is one of the two active ingredients in agent orange. Jesus fucking christ people are stupid ... it is half of agent orange ... you don't even produce evidence that water is one of the ingredients of agent orange, you just speculate to make your joke. And you call this fucking hype? Seriously?

The VA doesn't seem to want to use this system; in fact, they have an open "Request for Proposal" for the creation of an open source Electronic Health Records system.

Perhaps some people here may be interested in helping. The VA is huge; whatever they standardize on, especially if it is free, is likely to be implemented in many places.

The actual request (with more information linked) is available here

While the VA does offer specialized care for disabled veterans it also offers the complete range of medical care for any veteran who was not dishonorably discharged and to the spouse and children of veterans who are disabled or died in service to the country.

I think it could scale. The VA is already one of the biggest single health care providers in the country. But with the current political climate of the country it's a non-starter.

While the VA does offer specialized care for disabled veterans it also offers the complete range of medical care for any veteran who was not dishonorably discharged and to the spouse and children of veterans who are disabled or died in service to the country.

I think it could scale. The VA is already one of the biggest single health care providers in the country. But with the current political climate of the country it's a non-starter.

It is not true that 3/4 of homeless men are veterans

http://www.nchv.org/background.cfm

"Although flawless counts are impossible to come by – the transient nature of homeless populations presents a major difficulty – VA estimates that 107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. Over the course of a year, approximately twice that many experience homelessness. Only eight percent of the general population can claim veteran status, but nearly one-fifth of the homeless population are veterans."

And the rate is dropping

http://www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=1863

It went to 400k if I'm not mistaken, which at the time I think I paid 20 dollars a month.

http://www.insurance.va.gov/sglisite/sgli/sgliPremiums.htm

Looks like 65 cents per thousand.

"Why aren't we providing end of life payouts to widowed military wives?"

Widows and widowers are eligible (chicks get killed too):

http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/casualty/blgratuity.htm

There is also SGLI, which all but utter idiots retain (it's opt-out).

http://www.insurance.va.gov/sglisite/sgli/sgli.htm

Easier to read fact sheet:

http://www.navymutual.org/ServicemembersGroupLifeInsuranceSGLI.asp

You can decline, but no one in their right mind does:

"i. Public Law 104-106, effective April 1, 1996, increased the amount of basic coverage to $200,000. Members were automatically insured for $200,000 and had to elect in writing to decline or reduce their coverage to less than $200,000. The law also granted to Secretaries of the military service departments the authority to terminate SGLI coverage when premiums are not paid. "

http://www.insurance.va.gov/sgliSite/handbook/handbookch1.htm

Good benefit overview page (applies to all services):

http://www.navymutual.org/ActiveDutySurvivorBenefits.asp

I used to work for the National Cemetery Administration (NCA) at Veterans Affairs (VA). NCA uses two automated systems: Burial Operations Support System (BOSS) and Automated Monunment Application System (AMAS). They even have an on-line grave locator at http://www.cem.va.gov/ . These systems work very well. The systems are fully linked into the the VA administration of burial benefits due to deceased veterans or deceased military. The system contains information on current burials and has also been loaded with historical data all they way back to the civil war. Arlington already uses AMAS to order headstones. I'm sure the VA would be happy to add Arlington as a site for BOSS (they already manage 128 cemeteries and Arlington would just add one more). It would take some work to load the data, but that would be a one-time effort.

The interesting thing about the well-functioning VA systems is that they are NOT developed or administered by contractors. They were developed and are maintained by Government employees (civil servants). They are administered daily by civil servants. The programers are all GS employees and the DBAs are all GS employees. Contractors have never touched the systems and hopefully never will. The only thing that contractors did was provide some unskilled labor to do document scanning that was then imported into the system by the Government developers/admins.

VA has had success when they do in-house development with Government employees and dismal failures when they try to contract-out development. Just Google "CoreFLS" to see how a contractor developed system can fail to the tune of $250 Million and then never be deployed. CoreFLS was a $250 Million boondogle worked on by a bunch of H-1Bs that was so bad the Assistant Secretary for IM was fired by the President. If the President of the United States has to be personally notified that you fscked up, its as bad as it gets.

I disagree. The US has a vast and varied private college community precisely because a college education has never been free (except in special cases).

City College in New York City was free from its founding up to at least the 1970s. The other parts of the City College system, including Brooklyn College, were also free. They turned out at least a dozen Nobel laureates, and people who created the modern electronics industry, like Andrew Grove, the co-founder of Intel. City College paid for itself with Andrew Grove alone.

That was the model for the State University of New York, which was almost free, and also produced an enormous educated workforce. SUNY was the model of the California state university system, which also turned out graduates who do an impressive amount of scientific research.

Scientists and engineers still talk about the G.I. bill -- introduced by a Republican -- after World War II that flooded the colleges with returning veterans, as one of the most successful educational programs this country ever saw. http://www.gibill.va.gov/gi_bill_info/history.htm It gave this country a core of college-educated people.

If you believe in the free market, then you believe that the cheaper something is, the more people will buy it. The cheaper you make college education, the more people will get college degrees. Providing free or cheap education will give you a more educated workforce. And our experience with the GI bill, and the European experience today, is that a better-educated workforce is more productive.

An education, especially in a number of nearly useless social studies and liberal arts fields (which IMHO don't give you "mind-expanding" experiences), doesn't necessarily help you get a job that will lift you out of poverty.

If you have to think for yourself in a free-market economy and a democratic society, the best way to do it is with a liberal arts education. (Even if it's just 30 credits out of 120.)

Do you think you can get by in the world with just engineering courses, without ever learning how to read a novel or construct an argument, without knowing whether the Greeks or Romans came first?

Even in technology, the people who succeed are the ones who have a well-rounded education. The people who just have two years of technical courses are the ones who get replaced by outsourcing and unemployed.

People should be able to choose to put as much work into their education as they want. But we have a 2-class society. A 2-year technical education puts you at the bottom. A 4-year liberal arts education gives you a shot at the top.

I'd look it up here if you want to see the grave.

But I don't recommend doing what you're thinking of. I'm pretty sure it'd count as public indecency or something like that. Might even get you on a sex offender list or something. Also, it's rather disrespectful to the other people buried there (as well as those visiting their graves). Also consider that anyone who sees you doing it might conclude that you're disrespecting the troops, given that so many of them are buried there.

One? You're joking.

How about the Rural Electrification Administration, without which much of the US would still be in the nineteenth century because electrical utilities companies weren't expanding beyond cities? Or the federal prison system? The government runs that. There's also the Eisenhower Interstate System, which believe it or not was created by the government and not some "Eisenhower Interstate Corporation."

If you care more about healthcare specifically, Medicare is the reason our elderly and disabled have medical coverage, particularly useful to the elderly if their personal savings were invested in Enron or MCI or one of the many companies that were walloped over the past few years (particularly in 2008). Medicare is a great example because it provides healthcare coverage more cheaply than private insurance companies do. So does the VA system, which covers our veterans. They do excellent cost control according to the CBO.

Or was the point of your comment that it "has worked as planned?" That's a tall order. Name some private company initiatives that have worked as planned. Most don't. I've worked for private companies most of my adult life and I see the same waste and errors people complain about in government.

Seems to me you already have a government-run healthcare system in the way of the Department of Veteran Affairs. Or am I missing something?

I googled "" and came up with this as the first result
http://www.research.va.gov/news/research_highlights/sexual_trauma-111808.cfm
heres another: http://www.hsrd.research.va.gov/research/abstracts.cfm?Project_ID=2141696682
heres one that says "Women reported much higher rates of sexual harrassment (79.8%) and assualt (15.5%) than men" http://www.hsrd.research.va.gov/research/abstracts.cfm?Project_ID=909438600
 
just pull up "studies and projects->current/completed" and do a ctrl+f for sex or women. I don't know if a veterans affairs report counts as a DoD report but I'm guessing it's pretty close authority wise. I'm just showing you my sources, if those numbers bother you, and you find discrepancies between what the reports say and what the BBC/NPR published, you might want to contact them about publishing retractions because a lot of people are sourcing that as fact.

I googled "" and came up with this as the first result
http://www.research.va.gov/news/research_highlights/sexual_trauma-111808.cfm
heres another: http://www.hsrd.research.va.gov/research/abstracts.cfm?Project_ID=2141696682
heres one that says "Women reported much higher rates of sexual harrassment (79.8%) and assualt (15.5%) than men" http://www.hsrd.research.va.gov/research/abstracts.cfm?Project_ID=909438600
 
just pull up "studies and projects->current/completed" and do a ctrl+f for sex or women. I don't know if a veterans affairs report counts as a DoD report but I'm guessing it's pretty close authority wise. I'm just showing you my sources, if those numbers bother you, and you find discrepancies between what the reports say and what the BBC/NPR published, you might want to contact them about publishing retractions because a lot of people are sourcing that as fact.

This is the real problem - certain groups within society who will shut of whatever brain they have when cash is waved in their general direction. They need to provide a natural counterbalance to the ability of their employers to act in an unchecked manner - their employers require it as much as anyone - if they are to stay sane, by which I mean being part of a fully-connected graph of common understanding.

They talk about the 'training' you get in the military, but at the end of the day, you're still expected to pack a rifle and engage in live fire 'if needed'. My daughter was supposed to be a mechanic in Iraq, but spent her 18 month tour guarding the motor pool while civilian contractors did the actual wrenching. My nephew was a medic in Iraq, assigned to hang out with the Special Forces troops in Feluga(sp) 4 years ago and only bandaged up captured 'guerillas' rounded up for questioning, after needing to put bullets in them to begin with.

Back during my time (late Vietnam War era), a lot of combat troops came home and went to school on the GI Bill. Big Unc paid for up to 4 years of college, no payroll deductions during your active duty time, and if you were a draftee & out in 2 years, no biggie, you still got the full 4 year ride. The troops coming out today don't have that option, they have the Montgomery GI Bill which requires veterans to put aside money for college during their active duty and Big Unc coughs up 8x what the vet puts away for up to 36 months. It's only in the last year or so that they finally voted in something close to the GI Bill I knew when I got out.

Now, considering that Big Unc wants trained killers around and really doesn't do a lot to help them readjust to civilian life if they don't get stop-lossed back into uniform, and considering the almost double digit unemployment in the US today, is there any wonder combat troops sign up as cops as the only viable job they're halfways trained for?

Don't exaggerate. It's only around 15%... mostly people over 65. That's how "safety nets" work

Who's exaggerating?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)#Eligibility In 2007, Medicare provided health care coverage for 43 million Americans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid#Budget In 2002, Medicaid enrollees numbered 39.9 million Americans

http://www.va.gov/NCPS/NEWS/NCPSBg/vha.html 7.9 million veterans enrolled as of October 2006 That is roughly 90 million of a US population of about 300 million or just under 30 percent. These are old numbers too. A lot of people lost jobs since then so I would fully expect the numbers to be well over 30%. Maybe not a majority, but you have to admit it is a significant minority.

health insurance policies refused

If you're getting a letter from the VA you already have free liftetime health insurance, and in the US it's illegal to decline someone a job on account of their medical condition, insofar as it doesn't interfere with performance, which for someone who doesn't have a disease, it won't.

I'm sure there's some sort of latent point in this about "socialized medicine" or something, but for every one of these letters with the wrong diagnosis, I assure you a private insurer has cancelled the policy on dozens of people for no goddamn reason. And those people sometimes commit suicide too.

There are many scary anecdotes about the VA, but they're just that, anecdotes. Customer satisfaction within the VA health system regularly outscores customer satisfaction in the private health insurance/care system.

PS. If you get a letter saying you have an incurable disease, damn the letter. You must hear it from your doctor's own lips, and then only after you have had the outcome of the tests throughly explained to you.

In Iran, the Revolutionary Guards (RG) -- effectively, a council of religious enforcers -- determine who can run for the office of president. The demonstrators in the streets of Iran are not complaining about the theocracy. Indeed, most Iranians love a brutal theocracy. The demonstrators are complaining that one of the candidates approved by the RG did not get all the votes that were cast for him.

Complaining only about the "rigged" election is like complaining only about the bad sound from a cheap radio in a car but ignoring the fact that the car has a broken transmission.

Note the following. After the Kremlin exited Eastern Europe in 1989, the peoples of each nation in Eastern Europe rapidly established a genuine democracy and a free market. Except for Romania (where its people killed their dictator), there was no violence.

That is how people act when they want freedom and free markets.

In 1979, after the Iranian people overthrow the despot whom the Americans supported, the Iranians immediately established a brutal, authoritarian theocracy.

That is how people act when they reject both freedom and free markets.

Cultures are different. Eastern-European culture and Iranian culture are different. The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran.

Now, look at Vietnam. According to a reliable source, "approximately 20 million gallons of [agent orange] were used in Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 to remove unwanted plant life and leaves which otherwise provided cover for enemy forces during the Vietnam Conflict."

This injustice (committed by the Americans) in Vietnam occurred 10 years after the injustice in Iran. The injustice in Vietnam occurred over a 10-year period.

The Americans doused large areas of Vietnam with agent orange, poisoning both the land and the people. Yet, the Vietnamese do not channel their energies into seeking revenge (by, e. g., building a nuclear bomb) against the West. The Vietnamese do not aid and abet terrorist groups seeking to kill Americans. Rather, the Vietnamese are diligently modernizing their society. They will reach 1st-world status (i. e., a prosperous liberal Western democracy) long before the Iranians.

Cultures are different. Vietnamese culture and Iranian culture are different. The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran.

The injustice (committed by the Americans) in Vietnam occurred 10 years after the injustice in Iran. The injustice in Vietnam occurred over a 10-year period.

The Americans doused large areas of Vietnam with agent orange, poisoning both the land and the people. Yet, the Vietnamese do not channel their energies into seeking revenge (by, e. g., building a nuclear bomb) against the West. Rather, the Vietnamese are diligently modernizing their society. They will reach 1st-world status (i. e., a prosperous liberal Western democracy) long before the Iranians.

Cultures are different. Vietnamese culture and Iranian culture are different. The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran. We should condemn Iranian culture and its people.

A nationwide mesh cloud will form, linking vehicles that can connect with one another and with the rest of the network.

Unfortunately, people who live in the middle of nowhere (which ironically is "everywhere" in the U.S.) get left out of this 'nationwide' network.

It's a cool concept though.

At least down here in Texas, any grant money funded through DSHS as well as HRSA at the federal level have specific sections that state that any system proposed that makes use of the VistA system will receive higher consideration to getting funded above any proprietary solution. Unfortunately the available solutions are still very high risk and many hospitals and other healthcare entities really don't like the look and feel when compared against proprietary browser-based systems.

The VA hospitals and clinics have an open source package called VistA (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture). Veterans can walk into any facility and have their medical records available.

And we already paid for it!

http://www.va.gov/VISTA_MONOGRAPH/

I worked on the Vista project.. It is a steaming pile of poo. I now work in the private sector on a bunch of other products like GE's Centricity CPS, NextGen to name a few of the big ones.

Leaps and bounds ahead of Vista. The VA sucks because of the politics behind all of it. I am so glad I left that crap behind

The VA hospitals and clinics have an open source package called VistA (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture). Veterans can walk into any facility and have their medical records available.

And we already paid for it!

http://www.va.gov/VISTA_MONOGRAPH/

The Veterans Affairs payroll system "Personnel and Accounting Integrated Data" (PAID) Pay System was first planned in the Kennedy administration (1963) and deployment begain in 1964. See VA History Highlights for 1963 & 1964
I don't know what type of system it is running on now (probably OpenVMS from HP), during the 70-90's it ran on VAX VMS.
During the earlier part of this decade, they tried upgrading to a system built on Oracle Financials. The develoment project was called CoreFLS, was budgeted at $400+ million and was canceled as a failure after spending $240+ Million. So they are still running PAID, as far as I know.

The oldest medical database systems are based on MUMPS, now called M by some, which is still used by the VA. They have
updated it to "VistA", which predated Microsoft Vista (wonder if Microsoft chose that name for a medical reason?).

VistA® / CPRS Demo Site:
http://www1.va.gov/CPRSdemo/
The code:
http://www1.va.gov/CPRSdemo/page.cfm?pg=1

http://www.innovations.va.gov/innovations/docs/InnovationsVistAFAQPublic.pdf
http://www.va.gov/VISTA_MONOGRAPH/index.asp
http://www.va.gov/vdl/ is the library.
http://www.va.gov/vdl/section.asp?secid=3 covers your Financial question.
http://www.va.gov/vdl/application.asp?appid=144
VistA Data Extraction Framework (VDEF).

http://openvista.sourceforge.net/
"OpenVista is the open-source version of VistA, which is an enterprise grade health care information system developed by the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and deployed at nearly 1,500 facilities worldwide."

1,500 is not all that many considering the market.

Intersystem's Cache' http://www.intersystems.com/cache/ is the contemporary equivlent to MUMPS, a database that claims it can
run rings around things like MySQL in the number of transactions per second.

There are a number of Open Source Medical Databases,they are summarized here:

http://www.linux.com/base/ldp/howto/Medicine-HOWTO/record.html

My very first job was writing medical software, this is when few people even knew what computers were in 1977. Still have my DEC
MUMPS badge that I got at the very first MUMPS conference in DC. Have always felt I should get back into that field. To bad
Dr. Armor and I didn't patent what we were doing then. The pharmacists called up the office in disbelieve asking if these
computer printed prescriptions were real, because *THEY COULD READ THEM*.

The other side:

"VA DATA AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS:
1. FY07 Year-End Med SAS and DSS CNDE Files Available
The fiscal year 2007 (FY07) year-end Medical SAS (Med SAS)
Inpatient and Outpatient files are now available."
http://www.virec.research.va.gov/References/DataIssuesBrief/2007/DIB-0712er.pdf

Requesting Access to VA Data:
http://www.virec.research.va.gov/Support/Training-NewUsersToolkit/ACRSrequest.htm

"Click this button for information, guidance, and FAQs relating to the VA Research Data Security and Privacy initiative."
http://www.research.va.gov/resources/data-security

The oldest medical database systems are based on MUMPS, now called M by some, which is still used by the VA. They have
updated it to "VistA", which predated Microsoft Vista (wonder if Microsoft chose that name for a medical reason?).

VistA® / CPRS Demo Site:
http://www1.va.gov/CPRSdemo/
The code:
http://www1.va.gov/CPRSdemo/page.cfm?pg=1

http://www.innovations.va.gov/innovations/docs/InnovationsVistAFAQPublic.pdf
http://www.va.gov/VISTA_MONOGRAPH/index.asp
http://www.va.gov/vdl/ is the library.
http://www.va.gov/vdl/section.asp?secid=3 covers your Financial question.
http://www.va.gov/vdl/application.asp?appid=144
VistA Data Extraction Framework (VDEF).

http://openvista.sourceforge.net/
"OpenVista is the open-source version of VistA, which is an enterprise grade health care information system developed by the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and deployed at nearly 1,500 facilities worldwide."

1,500 is not all that many considering the market.

Intersystem's Cache' http://www.intersystems.com/cache/ is the contemporary equivlent to MUMPS, a database that claims it can
run rings around things like MySQL in the number of transactions per second.

There are a number of Open Source Medical Databases,they are summarized here:

http://www.linux.com/base/ldp/howto/Medicine-HOWTO/record.html

My very first job was writing medical software, this is when few people even knew what computers were in 1977. Still have my DEC
MUMPS badge that I got at the very first MUMPS conference in DC. Have always felt I should get back into that field. To bad
Dr. Armor and I didn't patent what we were doing then. The pharmacists called up the office in disbelieve asking if these
computer printed prescriptions were real, because *THEY COULD READ THEM*.

The other side:

"VA DATA AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS:
1. FY07 Year-End Med SAS and DSS CNDE Files Available
The fiscal year 2007 (FY07) year-end Medical SAS (Med SAS)
Inpatient and Outpatient files are now available."
http://www.virec.research.va.gov/References/DataIssuesBrief/2007/DIB-0712er.pdf

Requesting Access to VA Data:
http://www.virec.research.va.gov/Support/Training-NewUsersToolkit/ACRSrequest.htm

"Click this button for information, guidance, and FAQs relating to the VA Research Data Security and Privacy initiative."
http://www.research.va.gov/resources/data-security

The oldest medical database systems are based on MUMPS, now called M by some, which is still used by the VA. They have
updated it to "VistA", which predated Microsoft Vista (wonder if Microsoft chose that name for a medical reason?).

VistA® / CPRS Demo Site:
http://www1.va.gov/CPRSdemo/
The code:
http://www1.va.gov/CPRSdemo/page.cfm?pg=1

http://www.innovations.va.gov/innovations/docs/InnovationsVistAFAQPublic.pdf
http://www.va.gov/VISTA_MONOGRAPH/index.asp
http://www.va.gov/vdl/ is the library.
http://www.va.gov/vdl/section.asp?secid=3 covers your Financial question.
http://www.va.gov/vdl/application.asp?appid=144
VistA Data Extraction Framework (VDEF).

http://openvista.sourceforge.net/
"OpenVista is the open-source version of VistA, which is an enterprise grade health care information system developed by the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and deployed at nearly 1,500 facilities worldwide."

1,500 is not all that many considering the market.

Intersystem's Cache' http://www.intersystems.com/cache/ is the contemporary equivlent to MUMPS, a database that claims it can
run rings around things like MySQL in the number of transactions per second.

There are a number of Open Source Medical Databases,they are summarized here:

http://www.linux.com/base/ldp/howto/Medicine-HOWTO/record.html

My very first job was writing medical software, this is when few people even knew what computers were in 1977. Still have my DEC
MUMPS badge that I got at the very first MUMPS conference in DC. Have always felt I should get back into that field. To bad
Dr. Armor and I didn't patent what we were doing then. The pharmacists called up the office in disbelieve asking if these
computer printed prescriptions were real, because *THEY COULD READ THEM*.

The other side:

"VA DATA AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS:
1. FY07 Year-End Med SAS and DSS CNDE Files Available
The fiscal year 2007 (FY07) year-end Medical SAS (Med SAS)
Inpatient and Outpatient files are now available."
http://www.virec.research.va.gov/References/DataIssuesBrief/2007/DIB-0712er.pdf

Requesting Access to VA Data:
http://www.virec.research.va.gov/Support/Training-NewUsersToolkit/ACRSrequest.htm

"Click this button for information, guidance, and FAQs relating to the VA Research Data Security and Privacy initiative."
http://www.research.va.gov/resources/data-security

The oldest medical database systems are based on MUMPS, now called M by some, which is still used by the VA. They have
updated it to "VistA", which predated Microsoft Vista (wonder if Microsoft chose that name for a medical reason?).

VistA® / CPRS Demo Site:
http://www1.va.gov/CPRSdemo/
The code:
http://www1.va.gov/CPRSdemo/page.cfm?pg=1

http://www.innovations.va.gov/innovations/docs/InnovationsVistAFAQPublic.pdf
http://www.va.gov/VISTA_MONOGRAPH/index.asp
http://www.va.gov/vdl/ is the library.
http://www.va.gov/vdl/section.asp?secid=3 covers your Financial question.
http://www.va.gov/vdl/application.asp?appid=144
VistA Data Extraction Framework (VDEF).

http://openvista.sourceforge.net/
"OpenVista is the open-source version of VistA, which is an enterprise grade health care information system developed by the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and deployed at nearly 1,500 facilities worldwide."

1,500 is not all that many considering the market.

Intersystem's Cache' http://www.intersystems.com/cache/ is the contemporary equivlent to MUMPS, a database that claims it can
run rings around things like MySQL in the number of transactions per second.

There are a number of Open Source Medical Databases,they are summarized here:

http://www.linux.com/base/ldp/howto/Medicine-HOWTO/record.html

My very first job was writing medical software, this is when few people even knew what computers were in 1977. Still have my DEC
MUMPS badge that I got at the very first MUMPS conference in DC. Have always felt I should get back into that field. To bad
Dr. Armor and I didn't patent what we were doing then. The pharmacists called up the office in disbelieve asking if these
computer printed prescriptions were real, because *THEY COULD READ THEM*.

The other side:

"VA DATA AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS:
1. FY07 Year-End Med SAS and DSS CNDE Files Available
The fiscal year 2007 (FY07) year-end Medical SAS (Med SAS)
Inpatient and Outpatient files are now available."
http://www.virec.research.va.gov/References/DataIssuesBrief/2007/DIB-0712er.pdf

Requesting Access to VA Data:
http://www.virec.research.va.gov/Support/Training-NewUsersToolkit/ACRSrequest.htm

"Click this button for information, guidance, and FAQs relating to the VA Research Data Security and Privacy initiative."
http://www.research.va.gov/resources/data-security