It's a new day down at the VA
By Ken BurgerThe Post and CourierThursday, August 6, 2009David Gallibeau is a King Street haberdasher with high blood pressure who had a stroke and couldn't afford insurance. At age 62, his income slipped with the economy, as did his health.
"Insurance companies don't like me," said Gallibeau, who was spending a lot of money for doctor visits and prescriptions.
Then he discovered the VA.
As a young man, Gallibeau served a hitch in the Navy as a radarman. His friends said he just might qualify for benefits through Veterans Affairs. He decided to check it out.
"This has been a godsend," said Gallibeau, who works for Jos. A. Banks Clothiers. "They told me they were here to serve me, that my visits would be $50 and my prescriptions would be $8 each."
Gallibeau was astonished. He'd grown up thinking VA hospitals were grim places where old soldiers went to die. His experience at the Ralph H. Johnson Medical Center on Bee Street changed that in a hurry.
'Overwhelmingly impressed'
To be sure, the VA earned its reputation in the past. People waited all day to see a doctor. There was no such thing as customer service.
All that changed 15 years ago when the model shifted from simply treating the wounds of war to a true wellness program
Today, the VA is a sparkling, bustling place where thousands of veterans are treated for everything from minor injuries to major surgery. From valet parking to state-of-the-art physical therapy and psychological services, the VA is fulfilling the promise made to those who served. And it's practically free.
So what's the catch?
Eligibility rules are complex, but suffice it to say if you served in uniform, you're a veteran. Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are fully eligible for five years after service. Beyond that, costs depend upon your income.
To inquire, call 1-800-827-1000 or online at va.gov.
"The VA offers more than I even dreamed of," Gallibeau said. "I was overwhelmingly impressed. It's just amazing that everybody's so nice."
Loud and clear
Dr. Florence Hutchison, chief of staff at the Charleston VA, has seen the changes firsthand.
"I remember the bad old times," she said. "But it's been an incredible ride over the past decade to be part of an organization that has evolved so tremendously from something that was probably second- or third-class care to the premier health care organization in the world."
Her point is backed up by the fact the Charleston VA is ranked 10th overall among the system's 144 hospitals and second for its quality of medical care in the country.
"It's all about accountability and responsibility," Hutchison said. "Those are the two important concepts that moved the VA forward."
Nobody appreciates that more than Gallibeau, who now understands the true value of his military service.
"I want everybody to hear this loud and clear," he said. "If you did time with Uncle Sam, the VA is there for you. It's not just for looks. It's there to serve the men and women who served this country."
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"This is not a sectional issue. Difficulties over segregation and discrimination exist in every city, in every State of the Union, producing in many cities a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety. Nor is this a partisan issue. In a time of domestic crisis men of good will and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics. This is not even a legal or legislative issue alone. It is better to settle these matters in the courts than on the streets, and new laws are needed at every level, but law alone cannot make men see right.
We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.
The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who will represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?
It wasn't perfect, and Kennedy was not as aggressive as he could have been in pushing Civil Rights legislation in the coming months. But he left the country with a clearer view of the overall moral dimensions of the issue, and in historical retrospect he did the right thing despite the opposition from those favoring segregation,
Obama faces the same kind of dilemma today with the torture issue and must resolve it with the same kind of forceful approach. Torture is a criminal enterprise, and whether the Nazis, Japanese did it in WWII or the US did it in the aftermath of 9/11 it is wrong. It has to be labeled as such and an explanation given to the American people about why it morally indefensible as well as impracticable.
The problem was that Scarborough had lost the Nov. 4 election to Democrat Anne Peterson Hutto by 211 votes. The county Board of Elections certified the results. Scarborough appealed to the S.C. Election Commission, claiming massive vote fraud. The Election Commission rejected his appeal unanimously.
People might have been even more surprised to know the twisted logic and tortured evidence Scarborough used in his protest before the Election Commission.
Before the Dec. 3 hearing, Scarborough's attorney gave to the commission -- and to Peterson Hutto's attorney -- two electronic spreadsheets which reportedly contained evidence of vote fraud. Both lists were generated by the National Change of Address listing of the U.S. Postal Service. One list contained 115 names and addresses of residents who apparently had moved within the district and voted fraudulently. The second list contained over 450 names and addresses of residents who appeared to have moved out of the district and voted fraudulently in the district.
With so many votes in question, Scarborough was asking the Election Commission to throw out the Nov. 4 results and order a new election.
In the days before the hearing, Democratic volunteers spent the Thanksgiving holidays tracking down the people named on the two spreadsheets. It was an arduous task, with volunteers knocking on as many doors and calling as many phone numbers as possible before the hearing. As they contacted residents, a pattern emerged. The change-of-address lists were not evidence of massive vote fraud, as Scarborough claimed. They were simply a reflection of modern American life.
Many of the people on Scarborough's lists were professionals and business people who received their mail at their offices, according to Susan Breslin, an organizer of the canvassers. Others were students, who lived outside District 115, but still claimed it as their home and had their mail forwarded to their parents' addresses there.
Still others were Americans living abroad and voting absentee. They claimed District 115 as their home, as the law required, because it was their last stateside residence. In another case, Breslin says, Scarborough accused four elderly residents of Bishop Gadsden, a James Island retirement home, of vote fraud because they had their mail forwarded to family members.
Many were shocked to learn that they were being accused of vote fraud, Breslin said. One angry resident, an 81-year-old James Island man, said he had his mail forwarded to his daughter's home in Boone, N.C., because he spends much of his time there.
In the hearing, it came out that Scarborough apparently had not contacted anyone on his lists in an effort to give them the opportunity to defend themselves.
"He tried to take the people's right to vote away by circumstantial evidence," says Lachlan McIntosh, a Democratic activist who worked with Hutto on this appeal. "I find this offensive. I've been doing this for 16 years, and I have never seen a candidate declare war on his constituents in an effort to hold onto power."
On the day of the hearing in Columbia, Scarborough's attorney Butch Bowers presented commission members and the Peterson Hutto legal team with a third list, this one in a four-inch thick, black-ring binder. It was a list of 365 District 115 residents and their driving violations. The violations dated back years and included such offenses as speeding, reckless driving, driving under suspension, and driving without insurance. The names and offenses were placed in the public record, and the drivers were accused of vote fraud because their drivers license addresses did not coincide with their home addresses. Depending on circumstances, this may or may not have been a violation of highway law, Breslin says, but it is not vote fraud.
One more thing the people of District 115 need to know: When S.C. Democratic Party workers analyzed the second electronic spreadsheet of people accused of vote fraud, they noticed that row 368 had been "folded" out of sight. A Democratic worker performed a simple function to open the hidden name and was surprised to find that it was none other than Wallace Scarborough! The former state representative had apparently made his own list of alleged frauds because he maintains a downtown post office box.
Scarborough is now appealing to the House of Representatives to have the election thrown out.
And here's where Hans Van Spakovsky shows up in the Charleston Post and Courier Op-Ed page on Friday, January 9th:
http://www.charleston.net/news/2009/jan/09/will_s_c_house_protect_integrity_electio67892/
Von Spakovsky breezes over the facts of the case, not mentioning that Scarborough's evidence of vote fraud would have disqualified the Republican candidate himself. And that all of the "evidence" produced was a normal by-product of people changing their addresses in a mobile society, with no evidence of voter fraud, even after investigation.
Read it and laugh. But its even money that the overwhelmingly Republican State Legislature will take Von Spakovsky's expert counsel and order a new election. One without Obama on the ballot to boost Democratic turnout.
Ann Peterson Hutto has been officially sworn in and seated, but it may not last for long.
Labor never ceases for a hard working and determined man like Hans!
Specifically, they are taking voters who haven't voted in the past 2 years off the active voter roles, requiring them to bring extra documents proving their legal residence to the polls. Yesterday we heard from the chairwoman of the State Elections Commission, Marilyn Bowers. that they've sent out postcards to those who haven't voted in the past two years requiring them to return the postcard confirming their residence or else removing them from the roles.
If registered (but "inactive" voters show up--even with a voter registration card and ID--the poll worker STILL has to phone the Election Commission before voting is permitted.
Important points:
