My deductible had been met so my bill was for $16.78 and I paid it.

Doctors do not like seeing old farts such as myself on Medicare but many do out of compassion. The $$$ reserved for Medicare for people who paid into it for decades has been robbed to support the subsidies for the busted and broken Obamacare. Geezers like me do not always catch the proper care necessary and I understand that - the doctor's paperwork is enormous and the money coming back from the government is not the best. Doctors have better things to do than fiddledick with an old fart that's still walking and not bringing in a living wage for their time. I get that.

And that's why I looked into the VA. I was carried beautifully by the wife's health insurance while she was working but when she retired I had to be bounced. She still carries her plan with enormous premiums since she retired but she can afford it. She's still my 62-year-old teen bride barely out of high school and not eligible for Medicare yet.

I took a drive to the Freeport Rec. Center not long ago sponsored by a state senator who is not mine but it was close by and VA people would be there. It was a call for veterans to see what their service had earned them. I showed up sane and sober that morning with the originals and copies of my Honorable Discharge from the Marine Corps and DD-214 service record. I was interviewed and then went home to prepare lunch for a lot of cats.

In a day or so a nice lady from the VA Hospital out in Northport, Long Island phoned to inform me that my service record indicated that I was entitled to medical care and that by an Act of Congress I was entitled to full-boat freebie medical care for being stationed at a place where my United States Government supplied toxic and poisoned drinking water to me and my Marine comrades for some months. I feel lucky. I'm still upright and cancer-free 50 years later.

I'm a newbie into VA health care but from what I have seen at the VA clinic in East Meadow I am catching outstanding service at no cost to me beyond four years as a Marine when I was young.