The VA Health Care System

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The VA (Veterans Affair) Health Care System is one of the largest, most advanced health care networks in the U.S. The VA Health Care System is the provider for veterans, retirees and their dependents and manages all their health care. The VA Health Care is actually one part of the Department of Veterans Affairs. There is also VA Benefits Administration which has to do with compensations and pensions. Then the other part of the VA is the National Cemetery Administration which is in charge of the cemeteries and providing burial and memorial benefits. All these parts make up the Department of Veterans Affairs. (VA History)

In 1636 the “Pilgrims passed a law which stated that disabled soliders would be supported by the colony.” (VA History) This paved the way for veterans’ benefits and healthcare. It wasn’t until 1811 that the federal government authorized the first medical and domiciliary facilities along with benefits and pensions for the veterans and their families. When the United States entered World War 1 in 1917, Congress created a new system for veterans’ benefits such as disability compensation, insurance, vocational rehabilitation. These benefits were directed by three different agencies in the Federal Government, these branches were the Veterans Bureau, the Bureau of Pensions of the Interior Department, and the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. Ten years later congress authorized the president to “consolidate and coordinate Government activities affecting war veterans”; this action united the three component agencies into bureaus under the veterans’ administration. In the following six decades there were vast increases in the veteran population, and new benefits enacted by congress for veterans following Wo...

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...sites of care. To be eligible for VA health care you must have served in the active military and discharged or released on conditions other that dishonorable. As a reservist or National Guard member you would have to be called to active duty other than training. After 1980 the veteran would have had to serve 24 continuous months, this might not apply to you for hardship, early out or a service connected disability. There are four categories of veterans that are not required to enroll but are urged to so they can better plan their health resources. Those are; veterans with a service connected disability of 50 percent or more, veterans seeking care for a disability the military determined was service connected not yet rated by the VA, veterans seeking care for service-connected disability only, and veterans seeking registry examinations for thing such as agent orange.

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