Topic : Current Issues with Veteran Healthcare in the US and Ways of Solving them
General Objective : To inform my audience about the problems facing veterans in the country in matters access to healthcare
Specific Objective : To inform the audience about the challenges facing the current veteran healthcare and challenge them on the ways of reforming the system
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Thesis : aging bureaucracies in the country can no longer support the healthcare needs of our now diverse and dispersed veteran population, which calls for the development of a proper support system to ensure adequate provision of healthcare services to the population.
Introduction
Attention Gainer : that the US has a national duty to care for its military and veteran populations is common sense. The ethics of the practice of the US armed forces is built around the element of caring for each other, which is evidenced in the fact that soldiers always strive to take their wounded and dead colleagues back home. Nevertheless, the national policy on the wellbeing of soldiers and veterans appears to have shifted to the development of infrastructure at the expense of caring for the people, the soldiers, and veterans themselves. For instance, the number of casualties in wars that US soldiers have been involved has been dropping significantly over the years because of the development of sophisticated armories and other related war equipment that shield the soldiers from attacks and promote their wellbeing on the battlefields. This development does not deal with the reality that most soldiers and veterans experience post-war problems, which is a concern for the healthcare system because of its implications in the health of the soldiers and veterans. Though the country’s veteran health program envisioned serving a small standing army in the early years of the nation, changes in the recent years have revealed flaws in the current veteran healthcare system. For example, the transforming nature of the US armed forces, especially in matters ethnic, racial, gender, and cultural aspects, requires the system to adapt to the changing healthcare requirements for this population.
Reason to Listen : the county’s healthcare system has been under the spotlight in the recent years, with most of the issues around it calling for significant reforms. Veteran healthcare is no different because soldiers are critical in protecting our nation’s borders and enforcing our foreign policy in places where most people would never dare visit. Consequently, understanding the problems that veterans face in their attempts to access proper healthcare is important to us because it is one of the steps towards championing for reforms in the system.
Thesis Statement : aging bureaucracies in the country can no longer support the healthcare needs of our now diverse and dispersed veteran population, which calls for the development of a proper support system to ensure adequate provision of healthcare services to the population.
Credibility Statement :
I am fascinated by the type of work that US soldiers do in the protection of the populace. Mostly, I feel that while our military is one of the most reputed for intelligence and strategy around the globe, most of our veterans do not receive appropriate recognition
My interest in the wellbeing of our veteran population has pushed me into conducting extensive research on their system of healthcare through reading books and journal articles on the topic.
Preview of Primary Points:
Firstly, my speech will discuss the issues around the veteran healthcare system in the country and the reasons that call for reforms.
Secondly, I will propose the approaches to reforming the system to ensure that veterans receive the correct type of care when they visit hospitals and other institutions of health care.
Issues with the Veteran Healthcare System
The model of veteran healthcare in the country is too old to support the required healthcare needs of this population currently
The social contract that the US entered with its veteran population has transformed a great deal since the establishment of the nation. For political and economic reasons, it was envisioned that the country would have a small standing army that would be supported by civilian militia in peacetime ( Carter, 2017 ). White male citizens in the country were expected to volunteer when battles broke out. By then, as the cited author notes, the government little in support of veterans and soldiers apart from small pensions that it provided to the severely disabled ex-men and their widows.
Even though this model of veteran compensation and care persisted through significant parts of the 1700s and 1800s, the number of people who were being recruited to serve in the US armed forces rose significantly through time. Although tracking the growth in the number of recruits to the military could be cumbersome, one should note the consistency in the increase in the US military through time. An increase in the number of battles and conflicts involving the US necessitated an expansion of its military capacity, and presently, approximately 1.3 million individuals serve the US armed forces ( Carter, 2017 ). Another interesting statistic concerning our military is that it recruits an approximated 175,000 persons each year, which points at the changes in the composition and size of the group with time.
One of the most important aspects of the changing dynamics of our military is the fact that it has significantly become diverse. Initially, the composition of the military was predominantly White males. However, presently, our armed forces are made up of people from different ethnic, cultural, gender, racial, and social backgrounds since the nation established an inclusive military after it desegregated in 1948 ( Carter, 2017 ). Diversity aspects remain one of the greatest challenges to the provision of health care to the whole of the US populace, and it has critical implications for practice in the delivery of veteran care. Despite the realization of the changes in the composition of the military over time, only so much has been done to meet the changing needs of the veteran healthcare.
Most of the veterans struggle to access proper healthcare despite the existence of veteran health care in the country.
It is useful for understanding the US has an excellent veteran healthcare system. Nevertheless, the fact that most of the veterans struggle in their access to the services is one of the major problems of the system. The accessibility issues stem from the fact that the system has a complex bureaucracy that makes it difficult for the veterans to navigate. Consequently, most of the eligible veterans fail to access medical care in a convenient and timely manner ( Chokshi, 2014 ). The problem stems from the fact that the growth in the number of veterans in the country has also come with an increase in their diversity and distribution around the country—veterans are currently more dispersed nationwide than they were during the founding years of the veterans health system. A limitation in the number of clinics and hospitals around the country—we have only 1243 service delivery centers that serve more than 9 million veterans around the nation ( Chokshi, 2014 ). While this number of service delivery points could be enough to serve this population, issues with the accessibility of the services offered emanate from their strategic location.
The veteran healthcare system in the nation has also faced significant challenges concerning large-scale disclosures, particularly those that concern timely decision-making. The problems have been arising because of a lack of effective communication between the system and its stakeholders, both internally and externally ( Elwy et al., 2014 ). It is realized that the model of communication that the country’s veteran healthcare system adopted does not appear to help most of the target population. For your information, the Veteran Health Administration was involved in a scandal in 2014 in which it was established that employees at a Phoenix veteran health facility tempered with data on the time that veterans took to access medical care to indicate a timely situation ( Carter, 2017 ). The importance of this scandal in informing reforms is the idea that veterans have issues with their access to health care, something that the Veteran Health Administration has been coy on disclosure.
Veteran healthcare in the US struggles with quality and patient satisfaction, which is something common in the nation’s healthcare system.
The Veteran Health Administration depends on an antiquated system of health records that as a model in the healthcare system of the nation at one time in matters innovation, but one that currently lags behind the systems adopted by the commercial sector ( Carter, 2017 ). The country intends to upgrade its Veteran Health Administration software, but it should be understood that realizing this step would take several years. The size and geographical dispersion of the Veteran Health Administration has caused it to strive to be effective in all its undertakings in all the places around the country. This commitment is the opposite of the outcomes of the operations of the agency since the flaws in the operations plague service delivery by the organization.
Most of the veterans in the country report issues with the freedom in care equity and choice, which is according to a 2016 Commission on Care report. The reason for the existence of this problem concerns the lack of competition between the government and the private sector concerning the provision of veteran healthcare services to this population. The report indicated that a service-disabled veteran who does not have service-related conditions could end up with choices between the private and public health providers (Commission on Care, 2016). Using a hypothetical example, a veteran who falls in this group and who resides within the specified time and distance requirements (for instance, 30 days waiting time and 40 miles) would only qualify to receive care from government-provided veteran healthcare providers ( Chokshi, 2014 ). On the contrary, a healthier veteran residing approximately forty miles from the closest Veteran Health Administration facility has the choice of accessing healthcare from both private and public providers. Consequently, the limitations in the levels of competition between the private and public sectors create inequalities in the access to health care for the veterans.
It is also notable that the Veteran Health Administration does not provide the required care levels for people with disabilities. The disability compensation scheme of the Veteran Health Administration has failed to support the transition of modern veterans into the civilian system ( Carter, 2017 ). The reason that the cited author gives for this problem is that the model doe not suit the American workplace and the realities of the current military service. For instance, service members complete their expeditions with more damages, both physical and mental, than they did during the earlier years because of more frequent deployments and longer enlistment terms associated with modern service in our military. The problem also comes with the fact that the current system treats all forms of disabilities equally regardless of whether they are treatable or not or if they could be potentially life-threatening. Furthermore, the program appears to focus on physical injury at the expense of mental health issues.
Proposals for Addressing Identified Issues with Veteran Healthcare
The problems ailing the veteran health care system of the nation resemble those of the rest of healthcare. Therefore, the following approaches to solving the issues would be viable if considered:
Policymakers should strive to attain a better partnership with the private sector to improve the accessibility of health care and reduce inequalities in the choices of the services in addition to raising the quality of service delivery. Effective cooperation between the two sectors would increase the choices of veterans to the model of care that they seek, break the conventional bureaucratic system of access, and raise patient satisfaction levels ( Chokshi, 2014 ).
Because this speech has identified inadequate service delivery points in the provision of veteran healthcare, one approach to solving the issues would be to increase the number of hospitals and clinics around the nation ( Shulkin, 2016 ). More clinics and hospitals should also come with more staffing initiatives that would raise the capacity of the healthcare system to meet the needs of the dispersed veteran population around the nation.
Policymakers might also want to consider the adoption of enhanced technologies in their provision of veteran healthcare. For example, these technologies would be essential in reducing the decision-making time and in ensuring that the dispersed population receives constant information.
It is also imperative expanding the focus of healthcare delivered to the veterans to include mental health services. This proposal implies that the country should consider mental health problems one of the most common health care needs of the modern veterans.
Conclusion
A Review of the Primary Points
In my presentation today, I discussed issues around our current veteran healthcare, noting an outdated model of service delivery, struggling access, and quality and patient satisfaction concerns.
I have also informed you concerning how the health care system should be transformed to cater to the needs of the veteran population. Most of the proposals that I have made concerning this issue relate to the improvement of quality, accessibility, and the promotion of mental health care.
Restatement of the Thesis
The aging bureaucracies in the country can no longer support the healthcare needs of our now diverse and dispersed veteran population, which calls for the development of a proper support system to ensure adequate provision of health care services to the population.
Closure
I would like everyone in this audience to consider the contributions of our soldiers to the safety and wellbeing of the country. This consideration should drive us into remembering our national commitment to helping veterans settle back to civilian life, especially through providing them with standard healthcare. The challenges realized with the current Veteran Health Administration result from the fact that the department has failed to capture changes in the composition of our Armed forces. The few recommendations that I have made in this speech should not limit our creativity towards reforming veteran healthcare.
References
Carter, P. (2017). What America Owes Its Veterans: A Better System of Care and Support. Foreign Aff. , 96 , 115.
Chokshi, D. A. (2014). Improving health care for veterans—a watershed moment for the VA. New England Journal of Medicine , 371 (4), 297-299.
Commission on Care (2016). Final Report of the Commission on Care June 30, 2016. Retrieved September 28, 2018. https://s3.amazonaws.com/sitesusa/wp-content/uploads/sites/912/2016/07/Commission-on-Care_Final-Report_063016_FOR-WEB.pdf
Elwy, A. R., Bokhour, B. G., Maguire, E. M., Wagner, T. H., Asch, S. M., Gifford, A. L., ... & Jesse, R. L. (2014). Improving healthcare systems’ disclosures of large-scale adverse events: a Department of Veterans Affairs leadership, policymaker, research and stakeholder partnership. Journal of general internal medicine , 29 (4), 895-903.
Shulkin, D. J. (2016). Beyond the VA crisis—becoming a high-performance network. New England Journal of Medicine , 374 (11), 1003-1005.
