Outrage: Obama's Plan Implemented Silently? Army vet billed $3,000 for war wounds

[busybody..]

Outrage: Obama's Plan Implemented Silently? Army vet billed $3,000 for war wounds


Heros shouldn't be left begging senators to get the rights they deserve.

CNN:Army vet billed $3,000 for war wounds

Erik Roberts, an Army sergeant who was wounded in Iraq, underwent his 13th surgery recently to save his right leg from amputation. Imagine his shock when he got a bill for $3,000 for his treatment.

...

The Robertses say the VA did not approve of them going outside the system. Erik Roberts says he had no choice -- it was have surgery or potentially lose his leg. "I thought my leg was more important than the usual bureaucratic mess," he said. His leg was saved. The $3,000 billed to Roberts wasn't for the surgery itself. It's a portion of the bill for six weeks of daily antibiotics to prevent the infection from coming back. His private insurance plan picked up the majority of the $90,000 in costs.

...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has now decided to pay his bill, but only after prodding from a U.S. senator who got involved after CNN brought it to his attention.

 

[off2bed]

His private insurance plan picked up the majority of the $90,000 in costs.

I don't know the ins and outs of VA medicine, but something's wrong with this picture. Are we sure the surgery was for a military-related condition?

 

[busybody..]

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Outrage: Obama's Plan Implemented Silently? Army vet billed $3,000 for war wounds


Heros shouldn't be left begging senators to get the rights they deserve.

CNN:Army vet billed $3,000 for war wounds

Erik Roberts, an Army sergeant who was wounded in Iraq, underwent his 13th surgery recently to save his right leg from amputation. Imagine his shock when he got a bill for $3,000 for his treatment.

...

The Robertses say the VA did not approve of them going outside the system. Erik Roberts says he had no choice -- it was have surgery or potentially lose his leg. "I thought my leg was more important than the usual bureaucratic mess," he said. His leg was saved. The $3,000 billed to Roberts wasn't for the surgery itself. It's a portion of the bill for six weeks of daily antibiotics to prevent the infection from coming back. His private insurance plan picked up the majority of the $90,000 in costs.

...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has now decided to pay his bill, but only after prodding from a U.S. senator who got involved after CNN brought it to his attention.

Well no shit.

The man went outside of the VA and had a surgery done and didn't expect to be billed for the medication required after surgery by his OWN private insurance company?

The only thing unusual about this story is that the unnamed Senator pressured the VA to pay for medications they didn't prescribe after a surgery that they didn't perform.

 

[Karen Kraft]

I don't know the ins and outs of VA medicine, but something's wrong with this picture. Are we sure the surgery was for a military-related condition?

They would have paid if he worked for ACORN and got hit by the bus.

 

[busybody..]

Well no shit.

The man went outside of the VA and had a surgery done and didn't expect to be billed for the medication required after surgery by his OWN private insurance company?

The only thing unusual about this story is that the unnamed Senator pressured the VA to pay for medications they didn't prescribe after a surgery that they didn't perform.

The Robertses say the VA did not approve of them going outside the system. Erik Roberts says he had no choice -- it was have surgery or potentially lose his leg. "I thought my leg was more important than the usual bureaucratic mess," he said. His leg was saved. The $3,000 billed to Roberts wasn't for the surgery itself. It's a portion of the bill for six weeks of daily antibiotics to prevent the infection from coming back.

 

[unregistered]

 

[bronzeage]

They would have paid if he worked for ACORN and got hit by the bus.

This is the free market at work. If all soldiers were responsible for choosing their care provider, the cost of repairing wounded soldiers could be kept under control. Certainly this soldier knows better how to spend his money than the government.

All he has to do is fill out the forms and reimbursed for any covered healthcare costs.

You people act like the government should make all the decisions for everybody.

 

[busybody..]

No

not a spoof


Pentagon Plan to Regrow Limbs: Phase One, Complete

By Noah Shachtman March 25, 2009 | 2:19:00 PMCategories: DarpaWatch, Medic!, Science!


The first phase of the Pentagon's plan to regrow soldiers' limbs is complete; scientists managed to turn human skin into the equivalent of a blastema — a mass of undifferentiated cells that can develop into new body parts. Now, researchers are on to phase two: turning that cellular glop into a square inch of honest-to-goodness muscle tissue.

The Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) just got a one-year, $570,000 grant from Darpa, the Pentagon's blue-sky research arm, to grow the new tissues. "The goal is to genuinely replace a muscle that's lost," biotechnology professor Raymond Page tells Danger Room. "I appreciate that's a very aggressive goal." And it's only one part in a larger, even more ambitious Darpa program, Restorative Injury Repair, that aims to "fully restore the function of complex tissue (muscle, nerves, skin, etc.) after traumatic injury on the battlefield."

Muscles are, of course, famous for their ability to regenerate; they're broken down and rebuilt with every gym workout. But when too much of a muscle is lost — either from injury or illness — "instead of the regenerative response, you get scarring," Page says. He's hoping to get a different result, by carefully growing fresh muscle, outside the body.

Step one will be trying to get those undifferentiated cells to turn into something like muscle cells. That means making sure the cells have myosin and actin — two proteins that are key to forming the cellular cytoskeleton, and to building muscle filaments. Then, Page and his team will try to get those cells to form around a scaffolding of tiny threads, made of biomaterial. Exactly what will be in thread, Page isn't quite sure — maybe collagens, maybe fibrinogens. It's one of many mysteries to unravel, as his team tries to grow body parts from scratch.

 

[JohnnySavage]

No

not a spoof


Pentagon Plan to Regrow Limbs: Phase One, Complete

By Noah Shachtman March 25, 2009 | 2:19:00 PMCategories: DarpaWatch, Medic!, Science!


The first phase of the Pentagon's plan to regrow soldiers' limbs is complete; scientists managed to turn human skin into the equivalent of a blastema — a mass of undifferentiated cells that can develop into new body parts. Now, researchers are on to phase two: turning that cellular glop into a square inch of honest-to-goodness muscle tissue.

The Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) just got a one-year, $570,000 grant from Darpa, the Pentagon's blue-sky research arm, to grow the new tissues. "The goal is to genuinely replace a muscle that's lost," biotechnology professor Raymond Page tells Danger Room. "I appreciate that's a very aggressive goal." And it's only one part in a larger, even more ambitious Darpa program, Restorative Injury Repair, that aims to "fully restore the function of complex tissue (muscle, nerves, skin, etc.) after traumatic injury on the battlefield."

Muscles are, of course, famous for their ability to regenerate; they're broken down and rebuilt with every gym workout. But when too much of a muscle is lost — either from injury or illness — "instead of the regenerative response, you get scarring," Page says. He's hoping to get a different result, by carefully growing fresh muscle, outside the body.

Step one will be trying to get those undifferentiated cells to turn into something like muscle cells. That means making sure the cells have myosin and actin — two proteins that are key to forming the cellular cytoskeleton, and to building muscle filaments. Then, Page and his team will try to get those cells to form around a scaffolding of tiny threads, made of biomaterial. Exactly what will be in thread, Page isn't quite sure — maybe collagens, maybe fibrinogens. It's one of many mysteries to unravel, as his team tries to grow body parts from scratch.

This story has legs.

 

[busybody..]

pretty funny

an interesting story

DARPA is interesting, to say the least