Amy Hughes: The price of 'free' health care

It was a horrible dream.

My 72-year old dad with Parkinson's disease was walking on a boardwalk over an alligator pit and he kept falling in!

The alligators would go after him, but he would pull himself up or my mom would drag him out just before a gator could chomp off a limb.

AlI I could do was watch in horror from outside of a fence, powerless to intervene.

I awoke shaking, trying to make sense of it and reminding myself it was only a dream.

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Initially, I thought it symbolized the jaws of death trying to catch him, but now I'm thinking the dream was brought on by the recent revelations of the shortcomings of the Veteran's Administration health system.

My Dad left for Vietnam in 1967 when I was about 3 weeks old. The family photos show a handsome young man who looked like Elvis wearing dark Aviator sunglasses cradling a tiny, pink-swathed baby in his arms.

Fortunately, he came home a year later to be my Dad, but 'Nam was something he didn't mention for decades.

The subject was taboo in our household.

A few years ago, the VA ruled that the Agent Orange defoliant the U.S. sprayed on the jungles in Vietnam possibly resulted in Dad's Parkinson's disease, heart problems, and other co-morbidities that are snapping at him like alligators.

Like most vets, he also has combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder ("PTSD"). They labeled him 180 percent disabled, which qualified him to receive medical care from the VA.

We just assumed that the long delays for medical procedures and doctor visits were a combination of inadequate congressional funding and an HMO-gatekeeper-on-steroids mentality that controlled costs by rationing care through restricted access points, long wait times and provider shortages.

It is comical if not disingenuous for anyone who has any knowledge of the VA to pretend they knew nothing about the many months our veterans must wait to see a doctor or have a procedure.

While newsworthy, it is nothing new.

Even more disturbing are the revelations regarding the wide disparity in care and outcomes at VA hospitals and clinics. According to the data, the VA hospitals in Atlanta, Dublin and Augusta are among the lowest-rated in the VA system based on patient outcomes and safety measures.

In-hospital death rates and septic infections are much higher at the Georgia VA facilities.

For the most part, my father enjoys his frequent pilgrimages to the Decatur VA clinic. He patiently waits his turn and enjoys the camaraderie in the waiting room chatting with the other old guys wearing baseball hats embroidered with the name of the conflict in which they served like KOREA or VIETNAM.

It's always a great conversation starter when some dude sitting in the corner who has a tad more PTSD starts yelling, "They're coming to get us! They're coming to get us all!"

For Dad, it is part fraternity and part group therapy. He has resisted the pleas of his family to go outside of the VA system for care as if it were an act of disloyalty or treason.

But the recent congressional hearings about veterans dying on waiting lists and the shocking disparities in patient care have made him realize that there can be a tremendous cost for "free" health care, a price that he is not willing to pay.

It is a price that no veteran should have to pay.

Our brave veterans have earned our eternal gratitude whether they stormed the beaches of Normandy, the jungles of Vietnam, the deserts of Iraq or the mountains caves of Afghanistan.

To make it home from the war zone only to die on a VA waiting list to see a doctor or from a VA hospital-acquired infection is inexcusable.

Clearly, the VA is up to its elbows in alligators. It is time for Congress to shoot some lizards and insist on prompt, safe, comprehensive care for the men and women who served our country.