Understanding the VA’s Proposed Changes to Disability Ratings
The VA’s paused rule—requiring examiners to factor in medication effects for disability ratings—sparked outrage after Vietnam veteran Andrew LaFon sued over procedural flaws, fearing it would discourage treatment like cannabis or NyQuil while costing $100M annually to re-evaluate 350K claims. Critics argue the move targets veterans unfairly amid $133B yearly compensation payouts, despite systemic fraud issues like Minnesota’s Somali case and private-sector specialists rejecting VA pay caps (e.g., $400K demands vs. federal $300K limits). The backlash reveals deeper tensions: veterans rely on benefits for survival, not profit, while the VA’s shifting priorities risk eroding trust in a system already strained by bureaucracy and underfunded medical care. [Automatically generated summary]
Earlier this week, the VA put out a new rule that went into effect immediately when it dropped.
Medical examiners who are evaluating veterans for service-connected disabilities must factor in the effects of medication and treatment when they are deciding disability ratings for these veterans.
What this means is that your condition is going to be evaluated not on how it affects you if untreated, but it'll be evaluated based on how you function with this condition or this ailment with treatment, which again is a lot different than what the VA was doing back at 2012 and prior.
But we'll get into all that when we get into the meat of the show.
So don't go away.
we start now.
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Okay, so VA disability compensation evaluations.
For a long time, this has been a thorn in the side of both veterans and the VA, I believe.
Now, some will say that the VA is an organization that is, they're there and doing their thing, but they also don't really give a shit about veterans.
And I think that depending on the day and depending on the conversation, that narrative from people shifts.
And the new rule that came out earlier this week made a lot of people think that the VA don't give a shit about them.
It made a lot of people think that this is a way for Doug Collins and President Trump and anybody else who these folks think are involved to screw over veterans and the taxpayers once again.
You know, that whole narrative.
And although I will say that the new rule, in some ways, seems unfair.
It does seem unfair.
But I also see, I also see it from the other side.
I also see it from the side of the VA as a person who is a combat wounded veteran, but has also worked on that side of the counter for the federal government and the VA and Congress and in the military, of course.
I get both sides.
And here's what I'll say about it.
The rule here, and so here's what I've compiled together.
As I said in the intro, medical examiners are now required to factor in the effects of medication and treatment for any condition that you are claiming for your VA disability.
And the huge uproar that this caused caused the VA to halt the whole show.
Doug Collins came out, I believe it was Thursday afternoon-ish, and said, you know, we've been seeing what veterans are saying.
We see what the VSOs, the veteran service organization, the veteran advocacy groups, we see what they're saying.
We hear you.
And so they're going to halt it.
They're going to pause it.
So it's not going into effect immediately.
They're going to continue to take public comment and then, I guess, maybe re-evaluate down the road or something.
And so what I'll say about this is that I understand from the VA's perspective that some of these claims should be readjudicated.
Some of these things should be gone through because there is a lot of fraud out there.
There are many, many people who either claim injuries they don't have or then hope that they get a medical evaluator that doesn't quite know what they're doing or they can fake it to make it somehow, whatever.
And so in those cases, we do see results from periodically.
I think they happen a whole lot more usually than we think, but we don't really see them in the news media at all unless they're big, large sums of money or something real big happened with it, right?
I think the last one I saw was a few years back.
Some guy in Florida finally got figured out.
He had collected like $420,000 in VA disability compensation.
And turns out that he, I think, I believe he was in the military, but got injured or something in his first contract.
And so he did like a year or something and then was medically separated.
Something like that.
But he had figured out a way to scan the system and collected about $420,000, if I'm remembering the dollar amount correctly.
And they put him in jail.
And of course, he's got to pay back all of that.
But I think they seized his house and some cars and some other stuff.
So maybe the government got their money back out of him.
There's a lot of that happening.
And there's a whole lot more of it happening than we care to think or even know about.
And so, for that reason, I get it.
I understand.
But from the other side of the counter, from the veteran perspective, I also understand.
In fact, I probably understand it from this side more than I understand it from the other side.
There is already many, many men and women out there that served in this country's military that do go untreated for things.
And whether you want to say that it's just dumb on their part and it's their fault because they're not seeking it out, or whether you agree with them, because a lot of these people think that the VA is there to harm you.
They're trying to harm you.
And they're trying to collect your data and they're collect this and collect that and just keep all these things about you.
And it's more of a slave dependency kind of thing than it is a benefit.
And to a certain respect, I can, I mean, I don't know that I understand it, but I could have that conversation.
I could hear you out if that's you.
But I think that the truest thing that we've seen or that I've seen through reading and listening and watching is that the biggest argument from like the VSOs and things is that veterans are going to forego.
They're going to forego this treatment.
They're going to forego going to the doctor.
They're going to forego taking medications.
They're going to do all of that in the attempt to get a higher disability rating.
And I can 1,000% see that happening.
Now, the argument is: is that a reason to halt it, to not do it?
And it all gets back to, I believe, that both sides of the argument get back to this idea of whether or not it's fiscally responsible.
They say that it'll cost about $100 million a year to do it this way because if they do it this way, if they unpause the rule and continue on down that path, it's expensive.
There's a lot of cost incurred with that to readjudicate about 350,000 claims, is what they said.
They estimate about 350,000 claims will need to be re-evaluated, which means that hundreds of thousands of veterans will need to go back to the VA to see a doctor to be re-evaluated for these injuries.
They're going to need to hire more people to adjudicate all of these cases, or it'll take years.
There's already a backlog, right?
I mean, isn't that one of the biggest complaints about the VA?
Is that it fucking takes forever to hear back, to get your claim adjudicated, all these things?
So they're going to have to hire more people to do that.
They're going to have to find the space to put them, which the VA probably has a bunch of space that isn't being used anyway.
So that might not be a problem.
But not only is it a huge cost incurred, but now you have 350,000 or hundreds of thousands of veterans who have to figure out how to get back to the VA and take the time off of work and this and that and park and block.
Like all of that is probably just complaining.
But it all factors into the decision about how these men and women feel about this thing.
And I believe it, I'm sure it fuels the outrage.
I believe that there's probably veterans out there who are like, well, whatever, re-evaluate me.
That's fine.
But I really don't want to have to fucking make a day out of driving to the VA and getting poked and prodded and telling my story again and answering all these questions and doing all the, well, and so, of course, you're going to get some backlash.
There are also people who are just staunchly against it.
Staunchly against it.
It's blasphemy, right?
That the VA is even considering reevaluating claims and possibly reducing people.
And so, like I said, I understand both sides.
The veteran community is probably per capita anyway, the most expensive community of people in this country that the government has to pay for.
And rightfully so.
I mean, I'm not trying to say that veterans are too expensive.
But it only makes sense to me that there are things that the VA and the government or people in government want to roll out to help veterans make their lives better.
But I think that the amount of people who are going to sit back and say, well, wait a minute, these folks get the most money out of any group in the government, which is a bold-faced lie, I think.
So why should we give more?
In fact, if there's something that requires a little bit extra funding, veterans probably should be where some of the money gets pulled from first.
But the people who think that way aren't the ones who think, well, you know, if we reduced our foreign spending by 20%, we could help all the veterans and then some, right?
We could help all the veterans and clean up the homeless situation.
We could help all the veterans and, you know, make sure there's extra water for the dolphins, whatever it is, right?
Spend it on other initiatives, other programs, something.
There's all kinds of things that are underfunded that actually really help people.
So I don't know.
I guess I don't know what the answer is.
But what I do know is that the secretary, Doug Collins, took this bombardment, this bombardment of ridicule and public comment and all of these people just, I mean, the comments and the amount of them and how fast they came was astounding.
And then it's a real testament to, I think, everybody who even has a cell phone understands the power of social media.
But I always think it's pretty cool when things are posted and you can see it in live time, in real time.
The numbers are climbing.
And they were making multiple number jumps when I was reading through the article on X.
So it's a thing that people are passionate about.
And I think that there are some legal challenges, of course.
I've compiled some of those here.
Veterans' Sleep Issues: A Presumptive Law Debate00:11:28
Just recently, a Vietnam veteran by the name of Andrew Lafon, he filed a lawsuit along with several law firms.
If you didn't know, there are a whole handful, not a whole handful, there's quite a few, a plethora of law firms around the country that do nothing but veteran law.
So when veterans are needing to go to court to fight the VA for benefits or to fight the VA because they believe they've wrongfully incurred a debt or whatever it is, if they want to get other programs like VRE and housing assistance and those types of things, there's all kinds of folks out there that help veterans with this.
And of course, their disability claims.
So Andrew LaFon and several law firms earlier this week filed lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals asking that the court set aside the rule claiming that it was adopted improperly and would cause harm to veterans and the attorneys that represent them.
I think it will cause harm.
I think it will cause harm, but not because they're being mis-evaluated.
I think it'll cause harm because the new rule says that you can't, if you come in with this condition and you say, well, you know, I take a leave for my neck and back pain.
I take some Nyquil so I can go to sleep and I got allergies.
You know, I got sinnitis.
So I take a couple hits of Nyquil at night just so I can sleep through the night.
You know, it's no big deal, but it really sucks.
Well, now the examiner needs to take the Nyquil and the Aleve.
If you're a veteran who likes to have a marijuana gummy or smoke a little bit of cannabis for pain management, well, that has to be taken into account.
None of these things are taken into account any longer on their own.
As if you had sinnitis in this instance, you have sinnitis, but you don't ever treat it.
You'll never do anything to make it better when you're suffering through some massive sinus infection.
If you take mucinex, well, they're going to take that into account and your disability rating will go down because now you found a way to combat the sinus infection and to ease your suffering a little.
They're not going to evaluate you as if you don't have access to anything but shelter and water and bread.
Your very, very basic needs are met and you have this condition.
How is it going to affect you untreated?
What if we didn't have, what if we didn't have Walgreens and CVS and pharmacies to go buy cold medication?
So I believe it'll harm veterans in that way.
And it's not just cold medication.
Think about anything, you know, heartburn, acid reflux, joint and muscle pain, some degenerative diseases, all these things.
If you do anything to treat them for yourself, they must take that into account.
And so I agree that this will harm veterans because veterans will stop doing that.
They'll stop taking the Nyquil.
They'll stop taking the Aleve.
They'll stop going to the chiropractor because, you know, it helps them to feel better.
If it helps me feel better, well, the VA is going to tell me that I don't qualify for help because I found a way to ease my suffering for the day.
I don't know.
I agree that it seems quite harsh.
It seems quite underinformed, maybe, insensitive, maybe.
I don't know.
It doesn't seem like it's all right.
I think that this still needs to be this still needs to be talked about.
And there's probably some concessions that will need to be made at some point.
Let's move on.
The attorneys argue that the VA failed to follow proper procedures and that the rule undermines the long-standing presumption in veterans' favor when interpreting benefit regulations.
So what this means is when you're going through evaluations, if there's a question about, well, you know, can we presume, it's presumptive that because you have sleep apnea, you don't sleep very well.
Well, yeah, of course, right?
Like presumptive things are things that, you know, based on our conversation, you know to be true.
You can look at my medical records at past appointments, past things.
We can have the conversation, and you can just presume that because of these things, I have this condition or this thing going on.
And so when those things happen, when there's a presumptive question, or if, let's just say, for example, they're adjudicating your disability rating, and they, you know, they go, they round up.
They always round up.
So in this case, it seems like they'll be rounding down to the nearest percentage, rounding down to the nearest number, not rounding up to the nearest percentage or up to the nearest number.
And so I think that a lot of this is just, it wasn't very clear.
It wasn't very clear what's happening and why.
And then it was just rolled out.
And then people were like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Wait a minute.
And to be quite honest, when you read the VA's guidance on this whole thing, it seems a little confusing.
In fact, I'm a little confused here and there talking about it to you now because it just doesn't seem like it makes a whole lot of sense.
And so for those reasons, I believe that it's a great thing that this thing was halted.
I think that if this is something that affects you or somebody that you love, you should provide public comment to this.
Even if it is a few words that said, you know, I don't support this or whatever.
Because this is going to do, this will do more harm to veterans than it will good.
It'll do more harm to veterans than it will save the VA money, in my opinion.
And if we're doing something to save the VA money, but it'll potentially harm veterans further, doesn't it make it more expensive?
They're just going to have to come back for the treatment.
And when and if these things get worse, they're going to probably apply for benefits again, which means their claim needs to be, first of all, crafted.
And if you are a person, let me tell you this: if you are a veteran who does their own VA claims and has success, that's good on you because it is a daunting process.
So anyway, there's just a lot of things that make you just take a step back and look.
Are we doing this to save money or are we doing this to make the lives of veterans better?
But if we do it to save money and we're going to cause harm to the population of people that we're trying to save money from, well, they're just going to have to come back for more, right?
They're going to have to come back to be re-evaluated to go to get medical treatment, to hospital stays, medication.
Maybe some of these conditions require prosthetics, you know, and like in the VA prosthetics, there's anything from fake limbs to your sleep apnea mask.
You get all those things from the prosthetics department at the VA hospital.
So I guess my question to Doug Collins would be: is this more about like accuracy and trying to weed out the shitbags who are wrongfully taking what they didn't earn or what they don't not qualified for, however you want to spin that?
Or is this really something that is they think is going to make the lives of veterans better?
And why?
I mean, is this a seemingly power grab to save some money for the organization?
I mean, I suppose that that's possible.
But in my opinion, Doug Collins has always seemed like a pretty reasonable person.
And of course, we've all been duped before.
So maybe he is.
Maybe he is a complete shitbag, like they say, but it just doesn't seem that way.
It doesn't seem like I can tell you one thing.
Secretary McDonough, who was the last VA secretary, there isn't a shot in hell that he would have said, hey, let's put this program on pause.
Let's pause it.
Let's talk it out.
Let's see what veterans and their supporters got to say.
Let's have the discussion.
Maybe there's something we can do.
I just, I think that it says a lot about Mr. Collins that he would, as the boss, as the leader of the organization, be the one to step out and say, nope, we're going to pause this.
Now, he didn't say we're going to take it away.
It's not, we're not going to just, you know, exit off the list, but we're going to pause it.
We're going to, let's, let's talk about it, which is a lot more than veterans have had in that position, but in many positions for a long time.
So it's pretty refreshing to see.
I think that we should pause now, take a break.
Please don't go away.
we'll be right back.
Hey folks, real quick before we get back to the show.
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What these researchers found was that vaccinated children had 4.29 times the rate of asthma, 3.03 times the rate of atopic disease, 5.96 times the rate of autoimmune disease, and 5.53 times the rate of neurodevelopmental disorders.
A number of different diagnoses, including diabetes and ADHD and a number of them, in the unvaccinated group, they were zero.
In other words, all these chronic diseases that we're accepting, the reality is maybe 99% of it don't have to exist in children.
That's not the way God made us.
They looked at over 47,000 Medicaid claims between 1999 and 2011.
Those who are vaccinated versus unvaccinated, I say an odds of mention would be like 2.81.
2.81 to 1.
So that would be 181% increase.
Epilepsy seizures, 252%.
Learning disorders, 581%.
If you look at all these different diagnoses, they're all higher.
For example, I'll just give you one example.
Learning disorders in the full term is 581%.
In the preterm, the ones who are vaccinated, 884% increase.
Every single vaccine has an excipient that is human toxin.
Human toxin.
Human toxin.
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First Time Here00:02:11
Hey, folks, welcome back here.
Let's just continue on.
What I did was, this is the first time I've ever done, I've ever done this.
But what I did was I took the, there was a couple articles about this new rule and the backlash and the result of such backlash.
And I took the two articles that I found about it.
I put them into AI and told it to ask me some questions that the audience might have or that will build better context.
So let's read through.
Let's try it out and see how it goes.
There is 15 of them.
I'll just pick a few that I think might be important.
And here's the thing, folks, is that the interesting thing about this rule and why they did it the way they did is because it's unprecedented, right?
And so like one of the questions here is, was this rule permanent?
And the answer to that is that it was issued as an interim final rule.
So usually what happens when things like this, policy changes and things happen, the organization, whatever federal agency it is, will announce it and then give all the details and then allow time for public comment.
In this instance, they didn't do that.
The VA put this rule out and put it into effect immediately, labeling it an interim final rule, which means it is going to take effect immediately, but the matter is still open for public comment.
So they were, until earlier Thursday, they were going to just put it into effect and let it run and then do what they needed to do to facilitate the readjudication of all these claims.
But that's not the case.
Doug Collins shut it down.
We're going to continue to collect public comment.
So is it permanent?
We don't really know yet.
VA Disability Rule Change00:15:39
It remains yet to be seen.
But it did not go away.
The secretary of the VA did not take it down.
They did not throw it out.
They just, it's still out.
It's still there.
They just paused it.
One other question that was asked is, who would this impact the most?
Who would this, which, which veteran in the veteran community would this impact most?
And the answer to that is it likely impacts veterans with conditions, of course, that are managed by medication.
And so those are things like PTSD, migraines, asthma, anxiety, heart, excuse me, I got hiccups or something, hypertension, diabetes, those types of things.
Those types of conditions where you need you need something, some medication to get through the day, to keep your symptoms at bay, to keep your condition from flaring out, whatever it is.
Those are the people that, and I agree, right?
And so think about this.
Think about the veterans who got out of the military.
Let's say they just, for conversation's sake, they did 12 years of service, right?
They got out of the military and three or four years, and nothing was wrong.
Felt good.
They might have enrolled in the VA, put in a claim for some disability, whether it got granted or not is not important.
But let's say they're three or four or five years down the road and some condition they have has gotten worse or something new has happened.
And you figure out right, you figure out how to get through the day.
A lot of people, especially veterans every time they have a little tinge or a little sniffle or something.
Veterans don't usually.
I mean, there are some, of course, and and that's okay, but but we don't usually just run right to the doctor, don't usually just run right out to figure it out right, because there's shit to do.
We have a mission, we have something to to get accomplished throughout the day.
So don't run to the doctor right away.
So you go find something to to help you deal with it right, some over-the-counter stuff, maybe grandma's home remedies or anything like that.
But then when it gets to a, to a point where you go well, it should probably, it's probably time, it's probably time to go get this checked out, and it's a couple years later, a couple years down the road, and you go in, you put in a claim, you get your letter from the va that says, hey your uh, your evaluation for condition blah blah, blah.
That you claimed is on this day, at this time.
Be there, be square man, and you show up and the doctor asks you okay well, so you got uh, you got, you know, this thing going on.
What are you doing?
You do anything to help?
What helps you get through the day?
Well, you know, I take this and and um, I go see this person and I got these supplements and these vitamins and this over-the-counter stuff.
I did go to a doctor at some point in the last year and and they gave me this uh, this medication, whatever it is for this condition.
It seems to be working all right but but man, I really have a tough time some days.
Well, now they're, they're.
They've just told the doctor.
Well yeah, I have, I have uh condition a, A going on.
It's either new or it's gotten worse.
It hasn't gone away, but I got to get through the day, right?
I got to get to work.
I got to get the kids to soccer practice.
You know, I got a second job I got to get to.
We got to walk the dog.
We got to clean the house.
We got all kinds of shit to do.
Everyone's busy.
And so you figure it out.
You find a way to figure it out.
And now when you go to the VA to claim those conditions and you tell them, well, you know, I had to find a way.
I had to figure it out.
And so that's what I did.
Well, now they're going to tell you, well, okay, well, that's great that you figured it out.
Well, you know, the veteran, blah, blah, blah, has this thing going on, and here's what they do to treat it.
And a leave does this for you.
The insulin does this for you.
This medication does that for you.
You go to this specialist, he does this for you.
All these things.
And so all this goes into your opinion.
And then when your claim is adjudicated, they're talking about, well, what kind of rating should we give you?
And they're looking at the rating metrics, which may, it's possible, may have to be rewritten altogether.
So it's just a, it's a whole lot of fucking around.
And as I said before, I can see both sides of the argument, but I got to tell you, I am falling pretty heavily on the side of the veterans on this one, not the VA.
I get that the VA needs to figure out a way to save some money.
And there have been conversations going on in Washington for quite a while, I'm sure, about social programs and how to fund them and how expensive are they.
And is there any longevity in it?
And maybe the answer is no.
Maybe they're doing things like this because they're fucking freaked out.
The whole thing may come crashing down.
And the worst part about it, folks, is that we will be the last ones to know.
And so what do you do to prepare?
What do you do?
What are veterans to do to prepare?
Like, if this conversation about social programs and funding is a thing and it's been going on for a while, there's a lot of men and women, a lot of veterans in this country that depend on their VA disability allotment to survive month and month, month in and month out.
The purpose, if we're not aware, the purpose of VA disability compensation is to offset your income.
Just like I'm sure that that's exactly what they say for Social Security disability.
It's meant to offset what you could be making had you not have these conditions.
It's a pretty elementary idea, right?
I mean, it's pretty easy to understand that concept.
But these people are seemingly not taking that into account.
And so maybe the folks that are already established, that already have their ratings, they already have this and already have that, maybe they're safe.
And the rule does say that I believe it was February 17th, which would have been Tuesday, I think, of this last week, Monday or Tuesday.
Anything before that, they say is safe.
But when you read through the rule, it talks about new claims and increases.
So, what that tells me is that if you are a person who has been receiving VA disability for three years now, 10 years, 50 years, 20 years, however, if you had it before February 17th of 2026, you're safe.
And for some reason, the community doesn't quite buy it.
And maybe it's because of all the things happening around us.
Maybe it's because all of the fraud that we see happening.
Maybe it's because all the shit that we watched our country go through in the last five to seven years.
It makes somebody think, and I'm along the same lines, it makes somebody think, well, how the hell?
How the hell are we going to afford this?
How are we going to afford this long term?
And it kind of was the eye-opener when the Somali fraud in Minnesota was put out.
Right?
Like, there's all these billions of dollars of taxpayer dollars going out.
And it just makes you think, well, what else is super fraudulent?
What else is 50% of my fucking income being wasted on?
Nowadays, you can't help.
You can't help but think that.
Why are we even paying taxes if we're going to continue to quit taking care of the veterans?
I mean, so like all of these narratives, all these conversations are happening.
And it's wild, man.
It's wild.
Now let's see here, who would this impact most?
Oh, here's a good one.
How much does VA disability compensation actually cost the taxpayer every year?
And the answer to that is it's over $130 billion a year.
The veterans of America cost the government, cost the taxpayer $130 billion a year.
Now, is that a lot of money?
Yes.
Yes, it is a lot of money.
Is it reasonable that people think that that's pretty low for the amount of veterans that we have in our communities?
I guess I don't know about that one.
I don't know if it's reasonable.
What I do know is that it wasn't all that long ago that we exited, quite shamefully, actually.
We exited Afghanistan.
Not long before that, we got our asses out of Iraq.
And we ended the longest period of war this country has ever seen.
I mean, we have whole generations of kids who up until recently didn't even know what life is like at peacetime.
No idea.
As long as they can remember, America was fighting a war up until not long ago.
And some of these kids are in their 20s.
And so after 2020 to 24-ish years at war and sending America's young men and women into combat for a couple decades, how many veterans do you think?
How much do you think the veteran population grew?
How massive did our community get?
I mean, earlier, or not earlier this year, but last year, well, that's going to be two years ago now, in 2024, we were talking about how the veteran community has gotten so big that we now make up a large enough percentage of the population that if we organize and we speak up about what's important to us as a whole,
as a group, as a community, we could not maybe not swing, but we could affect the election.
If we all organized, so is $130 billion a year expensive?
Absolute fucking lootly.
That's a lot of money.
But how many million more veterans did we thrust into the communities, into our communities, over the last however many years?
And so if we take the number of veterans total and divide that, why don't we do that?
Why don't we just look quick?
How many veterans are in the United States of America?
15.8 million to 17.9 million veterans.
So let's just say, for conversation's sake, that we say there's 16 million veterans.
Okay, so 16 million divided by 130 billion.
That's not a lot.
It's like 12,000.
It's such a big number.
A lot of decimal points.
I think it's like 12,000 a person, something like that.
I could be doing this math completely wrong.
I probably shouldn't be doing it while we're taping because my attention's not focused.
But what I hope to show there is that $130 billion for 18 million people, 15 to 18 million people.
I don't know that it seems like all that much money when we're talking about prescription medication costs, which apparently is getting a whole lot cheaper.
So there's medication costs, there's the cost of medical care, and not just like a primary care doctor, but everything.
Cardiologists, brain doctors, feet doctors, proctologists, urinary tract doctors, what do they call it?
The cancer people, the spinal cord people, the mental health people, the dieticians.
I mean, there's so many different medical professionals that work for the VA.
It's a whole medical Infrastructure, whatever it's called.
Search Deeper Sometimes00:11:48
They got everything.
At least I think they got everything.
Everything I've ever needed, they always had a doctor.
That's not to say that there isn't other things that I haven't experienced yet, but I don't know if it's if it's really all that much money.
And like Doug Collins was saying to the Senate committee, the VA committee in the Senate not long ago, that they're experiencing problems hiring medical professionals.
Right?
And so the cap, the federal cap for income is $300,000 a year.
Well, the Secretary was just testifying that he can't find good cardiologists because they all want $400,000 a year.
They're not going to take a job at the VA working for the federal government at $100,000 pay cut because they want to serve veterans.
And if there is any that do that and I don't know about it, then, hey, man, thank you very much.
That's a hell of an ask for somebody.
And so, like, all of these things kind of come into mind when you read about issues like this.
There's a whole lot of people in high places and in low places that will critique very, very harshly, by the way, in some instances, will critique the VA, for example.
And what I will say, though, is sometimes they deserve it.
Sometimes they deserve it.
This one that we're talking about today, I don't know.
I don't know how fair it is.
Even though I understand where they're coming from, I don't know that it's fair.
But when we stand to critique these things and these agencies, I think it's helpful to look deeper.
Like if the Secretary of the VA is telling us publicly, I really need better doctors, doctors that have more experience, that are better trained, whatever the situation is.
But we can't get the better doctors because the doctors who are better won't work for the amount of money that they can pay.
Now, is $400,000 for a doctor too much?
I don't know.
I don't know enough about it.
I never went to school to be a doctor.
I've never worked in the medical field.
So I wouldn't know.
But think about those things.
Next time we start roasting anything or anybody, think deeper.
What else is there?
And so I don't know that we can punish the veterans any way, shape, or form.
Because they did a service.
They did a service to this country and they were promised something.
Now, if the rule needs to state, you know, as of, I don't know, March 1st, 2026, anybody who enlists after such date, the promise changes.
I think we'd have a hard time finding troops.
But at least that's a little cleaner, right?
It's easier to interpret what's happening.
Would that be bullshit?
Yeah, that would be bullshit.
But it'd be easier to at least understand the information.
But I don't know that we can throw our sons and daughters into war for 23, 24 years, whatever it was, and then come back after that and say, well, hold on.
We have to make sure that we're not overpaying you because you're taking NyQuil.
This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
And then it brings me back to what else?
Where else could we be looking for extra money if that's what this is?
I mean, it is quite possible that this is just a thing because people don't want veterans to get more than they already got.
Or they don't deserve to get more.
They don't deserve what they even got.
There's a lot of people that think that.
But I don't know, folks.
I think that it's up for your interpretation.
I think that we need to search deeper.
We need to think deeper.
We need to just look deeper for a whole lot of other information when it comes to these types of topics.
Because then you have context for your argument if you have one.
But at the end of the day, I don't know that we can fault veterans for just wanting to feel better.
And in a time where it takes 30 to 60 days to get in to see a doctor, in a time where there's a whole lot of mistrust of both the medical community and the government.
I mean, there's so many things that go into one's decision, I think, to file a claim and actually go through this whole process.
And I don't know that it's always motivated by just money, which is another misconception, I think, that the general public has of veterans and VA disability and things like that.
Because I'd be the first one to tell you, if I could give back my injuries, if I could give back my sleepless nights, if I could give back my nightmares, if I could give back my pain, and then also give back what it is that the VA gives me for benefits, I would.
I would do it right now as you and I are having this conversation.
Not always about money.
It's not always about that at all.
Sometimes, sometimes it is about money because that's what you need to survive.
But for many people, what's more important than the money is feeling better.
It's alleviating some pain.
What's important to them is feeling normal.
And, of course, you can decline to take your monthly disability paycheck and just go get the care that you're seeking out.
But I don't know of anybody that would do that.
I know a lot of people that would give it all back just to feel normal again.
So it's not about money all the time.
And I don't know that it's appropriate.
Even though I understand their angle, I don't agree with it, but I understand it.
I don't think it's appropriate to tell veterans that they're going to be at a disadvantage because they found a way to make it through the day.
I don't think that's right.
I think that if there's a way to find the fraudsters and the liars and the thieves and the steals and the cheats and all that shit, that we should go down that road for sure.
But for the men and women who have sacrificed everything for this country, I don't think it's right to tell them, hey, you feel free to apply.
But if you're taking any over-the-counter shit, well, we want to know about it.
It's going to affect your outcome here.
I don't know that that's fair.
So, anyway, we've run out of time for this evening.
I want to thank you for being here again.
Take care of yourselves.
Have a great rest of your weekend.
night as christians in a christian country we have a right to be at minimum agnostic about the leadership being all jewishly occupied
We literally should be at war with fucking Israel a hundred times over and instead we're just sending them money and it's fucking craziness.
Look at the side of Israel.
Look at the site of Tel Aviv and look at the site of Philadelphia.
You tell me where this money's going.
You tell me who's benefiting from this.
I am prepared to die in the battle fighting this monstrosity that would wish to enslave me and my family and steal away any rights to my property and to take away my God.
Go fuck yourself.
Will I submit to that?
And if you've got a foreign study, you've got Jewel citizens in your government, who do you think they're supporting?
God, right now, would you protect the nation of Israel and protect those of us, not just our church, but every church in the world and in this nation that's willing to put their neck on the line and say we stand with the authorities?
You go to Trump's cabinet.
You go to Biden's cabinet.
I have a black friend in school.
I have nothing against blacks.
She has nothing against me.
She understands where I'm coming from.
Excuse me, I'm a Jew.
And I'd just like to say that, you know, in our Bible, it says that you're like animals.
The Jews crucified our God.
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