I have been having episodes of vertigo lately, and it is almost enough to get my attention. It is a delicate balance, I know, having to pay good money in the evening to get dizzy, and then complain about it when it comes for free in the morning. I would have shaken my head but I did not trust it. I rose this morning, wobbled, and got on with the day. At the moment, I am chalking it up to the first really decent swim of the season- up to a half hour already, going for the regular hour a day workout.

But I did have the sneaking suspicion that maybe I might want to access the health care system and see what is up with the periodic dizzinness.

There is a bit of a problem with that: I don’t really know how to access the system in a way that is not the functional equivalent of going nuclear. That, of course, would be a pilgrimage to the healthcare holy-of-holies, the imposing tower that rises in the midst of the jumble of buildings that form what used to be the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda.

The Department of Defense decided that the Army Hospital up Georgia Avenue was older, and had no room for expansion, so they closed it and decided to consolidate operations at Bethesda, bringing the name with it. So, access to medical care for me means a trip to Walter Reed.

I have a lot of pals who know how this works- or is supposed to. There is a thing called “TriCare,” which provides service to active-duty dependents and the retired military community. For a small additional monthly charge, there is a program called TriCare Prime, which I may be paying for. I am not sure.

I should be a smarter consumer, but I am not. I will try to figure it out, and get back to you. But the fact that there is a hospital, and probably a plan, albeit at a distance, made the whole VA thing a little distant.

But the steady drumbeat of coverage of the matter made me sit upright.

Secret appointment lists- 115 day wait times- a nightmare of obfuscation. The VA’s own IG released a report this week that also documented several schemes intended “to conceal wait times” and concluded that the problems are “national in scope.”

Predictably, the opponents to the Administration sought to portray it as dysfunctional- and with the VA system having been previously touted as a model for how a nation-wide care system might work, a cautionary tale indeed.

Mr. Jay Carney, the astonishing spokesman for the White House told the press that the President “found the findings extremely troubling.”

I am gratified, since now I know that Mr. Obama is not only troubled, but mad as hell.

There could be no more scathing indictment of a top-down, resource driven centrally planned government program. So, naturally, I went to the TriCare Web site to see if I could find out if I was covered.

It was not like going to helth.gov. I found out I was covered by TriCare, and had even signed up for TriCare Prime.

I don’t know how it works, but at least I am not left with the VA, you know?

I am still a little dizzy today, but it seems to be getting a little better. Maybe I can wait three months and check it out then. But that would mean three months from then, right?

Maybe the problem will resolve itself on its own. One way or the other.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303