Mr. WALLACE. Well, I thank you. That's all I've got to say. Senator PRYOR. Here's one more and then we're going to one more gentleman. KEN SLAVEN Mr. SLAVEN. My name is Ken Slaven, and I spoke to a couple of your people a while ago. I am 27 years old. I'm a veteran. I had a truck accident in August and broke my back. And I was very healthy. And psychologically, you're going to have to excuse me because I almost died in the wreck. But forget that. I cannot draw Medicaid, Social Security, nothing. If it had not been for my father and my mother, I would have starved to death. I had no place to stay. I had no money. I was laid off. I was drawing unemployment. They told me I had no more benefits because I couldn't go to work. I was a paralegal in the Army. I was a drill sergeant. I can teach at the leadership academy for the Army Reserve right now. I've got 9 years service. I cannot work. I cannot work like I used to. I used to drive tractors, trucks, work physical. I've also got 70 college credit hours. I am not entitled to any benefits. Now why? Senator PRYOR. Let me ask you-if I could, let me ask you just a thing. You're a veteran. Any of the veteran service officers or any of the veterans groups have you talked to? Mr. SLAVEN. No. It's not a service-related accident. AUDIENCE MEMBER. It's not service-related, so he's not access to a VA hospital. Senator PRYOR. Okay. I'm just asking the question. Mr. SLAVEN. But I am a certified-I missed Desert Storm by 6 hours. Okay. I understand. Senator PRYOR. It is not a service-connected injury? Mr. SLAVEN. No. It was an accident I had in my own private vehicle, so I was not-I'm not qualified for that. Okay. I do have a service injury that I injured while I was in the Army. They operated on it. They corrected it. I've had a couple of problems with it. The VA still will not take care of me at this time, period, because I was out of active duty but yet I was still in reserves, but yet I didn't do it while I was on my reserve duty. Okay. I do not understand whynot blaming these children. But mothers, teenage mothers, 20-yearold mothers, three, four kids, they drive a good car, live in a good home. They have more than I do. My father I have worked all my life, ever since I was 8 years old. I have farmed with my father. I have drove dump trucks. I've done this, done that, everything I could to make a living instead of having to draw any type of welfare benefits, anything. My family is a middleincome family. My father had a heart attack 2 days after I got out of the hospital. He had to have angioplasty done. Two months later, he went back for his second stress test. The doctor didn't like it, put him in the hospital. He had to have four bypasses done. He come home Christmas Day. To this day, I have received $270 for me since August from the Army Reserve for back pay. That is it, from anybody. If it had not been for my parents, like I said, I don't know. What am I supposed to do? When mothers of these children can drive a good car, pay for their telephone, their house, their utility bill, their food. I don't blame those kids. They don't have anything to do with it. But make those mothers work instead of sitting at home and doing nothing. I can't work. I want to work. If I could find a desk job, I would go to work today, but I am not physically able at this time. When I had my truck wreck, I weighed 203 pounds. I worked out 6 days a week. I had a 31-inch waist and a 49-inch chest. I lost 42 pounds in 3 weeks. Senator PRYOR. Sir, one, you did turn your name in? Mr. SLAVEN. Yes. I've already talked to people. But he got to talking about Medicaid. But why ain't I entitled to it? Senator PRYOR. Let us take your case and let us see what we can do with it, and we will do everything we can. Sometimes we can help on these and sometimes we can't. But you've asked me some questions I frankly can't answer at this moment. Mr. SLAVEN. That's what I've got from everybody. I've appealed to Social Security. I've appealed to Medicaid. But because I am not supposedly not going to be disabled for over a year, I'm not eligible. But what am I supposed to do? I have bills. I have worked all my life. I have credit cards. I have truck payments. I got rooked out of my truck by the insurance company. I got $1,300 for a 1987 model four-wheel drive that had less than 50,000 miles on it. That's all I received for that truck. And that's another part of this insurance company. I mean, I know these insurance guys-but the health plans may be different, but I know these guys, people that write automobile insurance, they're a racket. Senator PRYOR. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. You've just heard the frustration of one of the folks who has been dropped through the cracks in the system. And I hope we can address it. Ma'am, we've got to cut it off. Did you have a solution to his problem? MS. WALLACE Ms. WALLACE. I do have a solution, yes, sir. Ms. WALLACE. Yes, sir. But first I would like to tell these people, first of all, our VA hospitals are not open to nonservice connected. Okay. They should be opened up for these veterans to take care of them and not put nonveterans in them. This is our issue. This is what we're fighting for, gentlemen. Yes, sir. I'll go get him some help someway, yes. Senator PRYOR. Good. A question I need to find out in factfinding. How many nonveterans today are going into our VA hospitals? Do we have figures on this? Ms. WALLACE. I don't have exact number figures because they're turned aside everyday. It has to be service-connected. Senator PRYOR. I'm asking how many nonveterans are MS. WALLACE. It is not open at this time. It is an issue coming up that they are putting them in there. This is an issue we are fighting, that AUDIENCE MEMBER. They're starting a test case in Alabama and South Carolina. But the point is AUDIENCE MEMBER. But we're turning this man down. AUDIENCE MEMBER. The VA hospital, it's got open beds, so that means they're going to put them in all the VA hospitals. AUDIENCE MEMBER. In Tuskegee, they have 600 beds. Fifty are available for nonveterans. The others are all filled with veterans. And they just want to help the local people and let the veterans go to different hospitals so they don't have to drive so far. AUDIENCE MEMBER. That's not true. They're turning veterans away that could fill that bed. Just like this man, they're turning him away, people just like him. We've got veterans to fill those beds that fought and died for us. Senator PRYOR. Good point. Good question. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank all of you for coming today and we'll declare our hearing adjourned. Thank you very much. HEALTH CARE REFORM: THE TIME HAS COME (Part 3. Answers to the Health Care Dilemma) WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1992 U.S. SENATE, SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING, The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:40 a.m., in the South Arkansas Arts Center. Staff present: Portia Porter Mittelman, staff director; Christopher Jennings, deputy staff director; Johnna Goggans, professional staff; Kirkley Thomas, professional staff; Leslie Chalmers, professional staff; and from the Little Rock office, Frank Thomas, professional staff; and Carolyn Kegley, professional staff. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAVID PRYOR, CHAIRMAN Senator PRYOR. I want to apologize, ladies and gentlemen, for being late. We couldn't fly down from Little Rock this morning, so we had to drive. And I can tell you there's a lot of rain between here and our Capitol city in Little Rock. And so it delayed us a little bit. And I just want to welcome each and every person this morning. We're going to start right in. We probably should have set up a little larger place. We thought that this would be more than adequate, but we find out that every chair is taken and it seems like there's a lot of standing room only back here. So we appreciate and apologize for the inconvenience that we're putting you through. We're sensitive to it. And we'll just do the very best we can. We have been traveling and holding hearings all over the State this week. On Monday we were in Fort Smith. On Tuesday we were in Jonesboro, and today we are here in El Dorado. We are trying to dissect every facet of the health care crisis that our country is in right now and we're trying to look at every phase of it. For example, in Fort Smith, before a similar crowd of more than 800 people, we heard many personal, real-life stories of individuals who were denied access to the health care system, who could not afford their prescription drugs, who had lost their homes because of huge hospital bills, doctors' bills, et cetera. We also heard from the providers. We've heard from hospitals. We've heard from nursing homes during this week. We've heard from doctors, about the various problems the doctors are facing. We've heard from local pharmacists who talk about the high cost of prescription drugs and how they're having to almost, on a monthly basis, tell their customers that the drug manufacturers are raising the prices again. (141) |