I'm glad you are being taken care of well, Ellen, and that the VA is nice to you and doesn't discriminate against you. I don't think many complain about those issues. The problems the VA healthcare system has are quite different. Incredibly long wait times in order to be seen, problems with bureaucracy in getting treatments authorized, problems with being able to GET to a care center, funding...
Put it this way, since you have given us an anecdote, here's another. My father is a WWII vet. He's 93. He had shrapnel in his back that destroyed a kidney and weakened his spine. It took him, quite literally, 65 years to get the VA to A: admit that his problems were war related and B; to get care for them. If it weren't for the fact that he's a 'rocket scientist' (yeah, really, he is) and worked for NASA, he would still be waiting, and still being denied. He finally called his congress rep, who finally pulled strings. Even THEN it took a year.
And the process for getting benefits is labyrinthine to say the least. One veteran likened the process to the "Chutes and Ladders" game, where landing on the wrong space (or goofing up one piece of paperwork) will send you back to the beginning, or get you kicked out of the game entirely. My niece's husband has been attempting to get VA benefits for the last five years, and keeps being routed elsewhere...and HIS injuries were the result of an IED in the middle east, so well documented that they have videos of the original incident, and all the medical records from that instant.
It's not that they turn him down, mind you. It's that they keep putting him in some queue or other, and he waits. Many veterans have died while waiting.
THOSE are the complaints.
