The Disabled American Veterans notified me that my claim with the VA regarding Coronary Heart Disease is successful. They have awarded a rating of 30% for the Viet Nam era Agent Orange caused disease.
It will take a while for the paper work from the VA to catch up with me. But it does not matter as the award is retroactive to the date it was filed.
I filed for this once before and it was summarily refused including a later appeal. This time the evidence was overwhelming and undeniable. So at least for now we are on the same playing ground and we will see what else will happen.
Odd thing was the DAV sent me a form for applying for life insurance. Unfortunately, while it is a good deal for some it is not for me. I have plenty of life insurance accrued over time. I have plenty of insurance coverage now to bury me with a lot left over for the survivors to use as they wish. I can see where some VA claimants do not have any coverage and such coverage maybe to their advantage. In my case, it is way to expensive and the current insurance is quite adequate.
Once in a while you win one!
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
My Most Recent VA Claim . . .
Like most of us that have to deal with the Veterans Administration (VA) and its processes, I have had a claims status change.
My claim for Coronary Artery Disease, an Agent Orange issue, has moved from "Gathering of Evidence" to "To rater for medical Opinion" with a top line note of "Pending Decision Approval."
A first glance that sounds very encouraging but in reality it is not, it is progress and a status change but that is all it is. I am frequently on Veterans Benefit Network forum and have learned much about how the VA works. It does mean that the VA is dealing with my claim and that is a good thing in and of itself. But it is by far no final conclusion and is yet months away from finality.
I take a positive view of this news, positive in that the VA has finally recognized my claim for the condition. I filed once before and they wrote it all off. And I can understand that because my evidence was shaky at best. But this time the evidence is pretty damning.
My heart attack risk has gone up. And all the information I can find says should I have a heart attack I have about a 30% chance of survival. It is a sneaky condition and other than the drugs I take is to exercise to keep my self in shape. The exercise is at once both good for my Diabetes but also for my cardio-vascular system. So I keep on walking five or six days a week. That keeps the blood flowing to the right areas.
Any way the VA has my reports from the testing recently. I had a Nuclear Stress test, and it seems as though my Cardiologist puts me through one of those every year, and Computing Tomography Angiogram. The first pointed towards the disease and the second one confirmed the prescience of artery blockages due to Calcium. In simple terms that means "Hardening of the arties around my heart". Either term of Arteriosclerosis or Atherosclerosis applies. It means in time as the calcification continues the blood flow will decline leading to oxygen starvation or Ischemia. That's what leads to heart attacks.
The VA is often slow but it always seems to get it right. So I patiently wait for the results.
My claim for Coronary Artery Disease, an Agent Orange issue, has moved from "Gathering of Evidence" to "To rater for medical Opinion" with a top line note of "Pending Decision Approval."
A first glance that sounds very encouraging but in reality it is not, it is progress and a status change but that is all it is. I am frequently on Veterans Benefit Network forum and have learned much about how the VA works. It does mean that the VA is dealing with my claim and that is a good thing in and of itself. But it is by far no final conclusion and is yet months away from finality.
I take a positive view of this news, positive in that the VA has finally recognized my claim for the condition. I filed once before and they wrote it all off. And I can understand that because my evidence was shaky at best. But this time the evidence is pretty damning.
My heart attack risk has gone up. And all the information I can find says should I have a heart attack I have about a 30% chance of survival. It is a sneaky condition and other than the drugs I take is to exercise to keep my self in shape. The exercise is at once both good for my Diabetes but also for my cardio-vascular system. So I keep on walking five or six days a week. That keeps the blood flowing to the right areas.
Any way the VA has my reports from the testing recently. I had a Nuclear Stress test, and it seems as though my Cardiologist puts me through one of those every year, and Computing Tomography Angiogram. The first pointed towards the disease and the second one confirmed the prescience of artery blockages due to Calcium. In simple terms that means "Hardening of the arties around my heart". Either term of Arteriosclerosis or Atherosclerosis applies. It means in time as the calcification continues the blood flow will decline leading to oxygen starvation or Ischemia. That's what leads to heart attacks.
The VA is often slow but it always seems to get it right. So I patiently wait for the results.
Monday, October 12, 2015
Veterans Benefit Network . . .
Almost everyday, I go to the Veterans Benefit Network forum. It is for and by US veterans and as you would opine deals with issues of veteran health, compensation and the Department of Veteran Affairs. There are various topics but the more common ones are Diabetes Type II, Agent Orange and of course the awards for service connected disabilities.
You learn a great deal on the forum. For instance the VA health clinics and hospitals have nothing to do with the award of Service Connected (SC) disability awards and the compensation for those disabilities. And Congress has as usual stepped in and muck up things here and there. We all call that generally red tape. And the VA which has been around since the Civil War so is mired knee deep in it. It is much like the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.
That means the VA moves agonizingly slow. One fills out the appropriate VA form for a claim for SC disability. Now days there are required two forms, one is general in nature and the other is specific the SC claim, like Diabetes and so on.
And the VA is very fragmented. Each state has a Regional Office (RO). Some states like Texas has two of them. There is usually a giant humongus hospital associated with the RO. In my case, I deal with the Waco, TX RO. So I must send my claims to that office. And Waco is the home of Baylor University and the VA. I am not sure which is bigger, the school or the VA complex.
Each RO has service organizations associated with it. These are American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans just to name a few of them. And sometimes you can find at the county level, a Service Organization representative. That person receives a small stipend and is usually a disable veteran him or herself. You can get the VA forms at his office. Or you can download them from the VA web site.
Every large community in the US has a VA facility. Example is at Dallas, TX there is a huge hospital dedicated exclusively to serving the disable veterans. Fort Worth has a VA clinic, serious stuff is sent over to Dallas or down to Waco as needed.
And when you submit an SC claim, it may be shuffled out to Buffalo. By that I mean, there are ROs that specialize in that particular disability. So your paper work may start at your RO and end up in Kansas City, or some where else in the US. That spreads out the work from the busiest location to that location with the specialist.
An SC claim usually takes from a minimum of six months to years to finalize. I had an SC for Tinnitus and that was done in a six month period. That was really quite fast. I got a SC of 10% for Tinnitus but alas, it made not different to my total disability. It just added to the stack of paper and is now a matter of record.
The forum though is riddled with folks looking for help with their SC. Some of the SCs are in appeal, that is the VA evaluated the condition and said, no. There is an appeal process one can go through. Those are the SCs that can last years. Not to worry, if one is successful in his or her appeal, then the VA has go back and compensate you from the date you initially put in you paper work. That is sometimes a rather large piece of money. And usually, those people are in dire straits from a need perspective.
The VA does have an expedited process for those in truly bad financial situation. Even then, it takes several months, maybe up to six months to get it finalize. If anything, the VA is thorough in its reviews and process.
Oh yes, at any given time the VA is processing 90,000 claims a month. So it is a vast bureaucracy one is dealing with, and has its bad actors as well as its stars. So the forum is often a place to vent. And they vent about the claims side of the place as well as the health service side of things. Remember there are 50 states and fifty or more ROs to deal with some 339,000,000 people. Not just the Veterans are effected, so are their families and care takers. It is a vast operation.
So the forum is divided up into general subjects attuned to the veterans needs. Diabetes is one, Agent Orange is another, just for Women is still another and of awards of SCs.
It seems like every day a veteran discovers the VNB. Some topics occur over and over again, yet others appear new. We fight all over the world, so there are the obvious wounded we deal with, and the not so obvious like the effects of the defoliant Agent Orange which results I a whole host of disease like Diabetes Type II (I am one of those Agent Orange people). Most times the forum can help because of some many of us with those experiences dealing with the VA, sometimes it is just someone venting, others are obvious goldbrickers trying to play the system to their advantage.
So when you read about a veteran getting mistreated, it is usually the slow bureaucratic processes and individuals causing the problem. It is some times a self fulfilling giant mindful of its self first rather than the customer, the veteran. The VA is the largest of its kind in the world and services US veterans all over the world. Oh yes, one final piece of the puzzle, VA compensation is 100% tax free and one usually gets free medical care for that disability (from the VA of course).
You learn a great deal on the forum. For instance the VA health clinics and hospitals have nothing to do with the award of Service Connected (SC) disability awards and the compensation for those disabilities. And Congress has as usual stepped in and muck up things here and there. We all call that generally red tape. And the VA which has been around since the Civil War so is mired knee deep in it. It is much like the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.
That means the VA moves agonizingly slow. One fills out the appropriate VA form for a claim for SC disability. Now days there are required two forms, one is general in nature and the other is specific the SC claim, like Diabetes and so on.
And the VA is very fragmented. Each state has a Regional Office (RO). Some states like Texas has two of them. There is usually a giant humongus hospital associated with the RO. In my case, I deal with the Waco, TX RO. So I must send my claims to that office. And Waco is the home of Baylor University and the VA. I am not sure which is bigger, the school or the VA complex.
Each RO has service organizations associated with it. These are American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans just to name a few of them. And sometimes you can find at the county level, a Service Organization representative. That person receives a small stipend and is usually a disable veteran him or herself. You can get the VA forms at his office. Or you can download them from the VA web site.
Every large community in the US has a VA facility. Example is at Dallas, TX there is a huge hospital dedicated exclusively to serving the disable veterans. Fort Worth has a VA clinic, serious stuff is sent over to Dallas or down to Waco as needed.
And when you submit an SC claim, it may be shuffled out to Buffalo. By that I mean, there are ROs that specialize in that particular disability. So your paper work may start at your RO and end up in Kansas City, or some where else in the US. That spreads out the work from the busiest location to that location with the specialist.
An SC claim usually takes from a minimum of six months to years to finalize. I had an SC for Tinnitus and that was done in a six month period. That was really quite fast. I got a SC of 10% for Tinnitus but alas, it made not different to my total disability. It just added to the stack of paper and is now a matter of record.
The forum though is riddled with folks looking for help with their SC. Some of the SCs are in appeal, that is the VA evaluated the condition and said, no. There is an appeal process one can go through. Those are the SCs that can last years. Not to worry, if one is successful in his or her appeal, then the VA has go back and compensate you from the date you initially put in you paper work. That is sometimes a rather large piece of money. And usually, those people are in dire straits from a need perspective.
The VA does have an expedited process for those in truly bad financial situation. Even then, it takes several months, maybe up to six months to get it finalize. If anything, the VA is thorough in its reviews and process.
Oh yes, at any given time the VA is processing 90,000 claims a month. So it is a vast bureaucracy one is dealing with, and has its bad actors as well as its stars. So the forum is often a place to vent. And they vent about the claims side of the place as well as the health service side of things. Remember there are 50 states and fifty or more ROs to deal with some 339,000,000 people. Not just the Veterans are effected, so are their families and care takers. It is a vast operation.
So the forum is divided up into general subjects attuned to the veterans needs. Diabetes is one, Agent Orange is another, just for Women is still another and of awards of SCs.
It seems like every day a veteran discovers the VNB. Some topics occur over and over again, yet others appear new. We fight all over the world, so there are the obvious wounded we deal with, and the not so obvious like the effects of the defoliant Agent Orange which results I a whole host of disease like Diabetes Type II (I am one of those Agent Orange people). Most times the forum can help because of some many of us with those experiences dealing with the VA, sometimes it is just someone venting, others are obvious goldbrickers trying to play the system to their advantage.
So when you read about a veteran getting mistreated, it is usually the slow bureaucratic processes and individuals causing the problem. It is some times a self fulfilling giant mindful of its self first rather than the customer, the veteran. The VA is the largest of its kind in the world and services US veterans all over the world. Oh yes, one final piece of the puzzle, VA compensation is 100% tax free and one usually gets free medical care for that disability (from the VA of course).
Sunday, October 11, 2015
The Beat Goes On . . .
In the presidential race things are settling down a bit. Trump is losing ground, real candidates like Marco Rubio are moving up and Hillary Clinton is feeling the pressure of her past and the competition in her party.
There is much ado about nothing at the moment. Trump has released his proposed tax plan with some good and some bad in it. I really don't think it does much and may not be sustainable. The idea that everybody should pay some tax is a good one. But he seems to load up on the rich. And since he does not personally depend on anyone to contribute to his campaign that is okay.
Hillary is against everything. Against the pipeline, against Obama's trade agreement (in fact most Democrats seem to be against it and most Republicans for it) and still can not get by Benghazi and her personal computer issues. As an old military type she clearly violated the law and subjugate the State Department to potential leaks to the outside world. But then, maybe the outside world was as ignorant as we, the people, were. There is hope in that regard but since she did little but travel in her tenure as Secretary of State, well ho home about it all. At least she wants us to think that way. Her technical expert will not testify unless given immunity, well that makes you wonder what was really in those allegedly personal eMails.
I read since she will not have to debate her Democratic opponents she has slipped more in the polls. I am sure she has sufficient strength in the polls to outlast her Democratic opposition but the general public is well on record of not trusting her. She has been caught to many times in to may lies.
And the biggest brouhaha is gun control again. Control how? Well President Obama fails to say that. He is up against the US Constitution and already well decided case law by the Supreme Court regarding gun ownership. He can control ammo and seems to have put a real constraint on the availability of the ammunition supplies. But all of that is by fiat and thus the next president will or can wipe it out with the stroke of pin.
EPA took it in the shorts again over the Clean Water Act. EPA has tried to link all water sources together and the courts have summarily rejected that. So far the states have won in court. It will probably go like the Presidents Immigration actions, stopped dead in their tracks. The appeal cours have up held the lower courts and that bodes ill for him in that regard.
His deal with Iran has stunk up the place. Playing tricks to avoid treaty status. And using the United Nations to try to control guns blew up in his face too.
With Boehner bailing out, he is losing his grip on Republican Congress. The Republicans are moving toward more conservative position. Government close down now rest with him not Congress. His opposition will be paramount and it will be used against all Democrats shortly. I predict a big backfire for them.
And yes, the beat goes on.
There is much ado about nothing at the moment. Trump has released his proposed tax plan with some good and some bad in it. I really don't think it does much and may not be sustainable. The idea that everybody should pay some tax is a good one. But he seems to load up on the rich. And since he does not personally depend on anyone to contribute to his campaign that is okay.
Hillary is against everything. Against the pipeline, against Obama's trade agreement (in fact most Democrats seem to be against it and most Republicans for it) and still can not get by Benghazi and her personal computer issues. As an old military type she clearly violated the law and subjugate the State Department to potential leaks to the outside world. But then, maybe the outside world was as ignorant as we, the people, were. There is hope in that regard but since she did little but travel in her tenure as Secretary of State, well ho home about it all. At least she wants us to think that way. Her technical expert will not testify unless given immunity, well that makes you wonder what was really in those allegedly personal eMails.
I read since she will not have to debate her Democratic opponents she has slipped more in the polls. I am sure she has sufficient strength in the polls to outlast her Democratic opposition but the general public is well on record of not trusting her. She has been caught to many times in to may lies.
And the biggest brouhaha is gun control again. Control how? Well President Obama fails to say that. He is up against the US Constitution and already well decided case law by the Supreme Court regarding gun ownership. He can control ammo and seems to have put a real constraint on the availability of the ammunition supplies. But all of that is by fiat and thus the next president will or can wipe it out with the stroke of pin.
EPA took it in the shorts again over the Clean Water Act. EPA has tried to link all water sources together and the courts have summarily rejected that. So far the states have won in court. It will probably go like the Presidents Immigration actions, stopped dead in their tracks. The appeal cours have up held the lower courts and that bodes ill for him in that regard.
His deal with Iran has stunk up the place. Playing tricks to avoid treaty status. And using the United Nations to try to control guns blew up in his face too.
With Boehner bailing out, he is losing his grip on Republican Congress. The Republicans are moving toward more conservative position. Government close down now rest with him not Congress. His opposition will be paramount and it will be used against all Democrats shortly. I predict a big backfire for them.
And yes, the beat goes on.
Sunday, October 4, 2015
Angeles House . . .
Mark Morrison has withdrawn his offer to buy the house. I had objected to the sale of the land but others in the family saw it differently. I had sort of withdrawn after 70% of the stockholders wanted to sell the house.
I had resigned my position on the board of directors in preparation for a law suit. But my sister prevailed upon me not to sue my family. So I stopped any actions in that regard. I was resigned to the fact that a piece of the plantation was going to be sold and there was no convincing anyone not to do it. They had their reasons and motivations, certainly they were separate from mine.
However, that is over for now. But it was indeed getting close to splitting the family. There was a lot of furor over the selling of the house, most I am sure on my part.
I had almost come to the conclusion I should withdraw altogether from it dealings with the plantation. It seemed the others and they were in a majority, wanted to go a different direction. So my presence was not needed nor wanted and probably not warranted.
I do not think the rest of the family will want to see me there anyway. Things will be tense for a while.
Families are like that and issues arise. This one is over for the moment. I am sure another will arise down the road. Maybe I will be dead by then. There is hope!
I had resigned my position on the board of directors in preparation for a law suit. But my sister prevailed upon me not to sue my family. So I stopped any actions in that regard. I was resigned to the fact that a piece of the plantation was going to be sold and there was no convincing anyone not to do it. They had their reasons and motivations, certainly they were separate from mine.
However, that is over for now. But it was indeed getting close to splitting the family. There was a lot of furor over the selling of the house, most I am sure on my part.
I had almost come to the conclusion I should withdraw altogether from it dealings with the plantation. It seemed the others and they were in a majority, wanted to go a different direction. So my presence was not needed nor wanted and probably not warranted.
I do not think the rest of the family will want to see me there anyway. Things will be tense for a while.
Families are like that and issues arise. This one is over for the moment. I am sure another will arise down the road. Maybe I will be dead by then. There is hope!
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