Question:
Shortly after I got a medical discharge, I got pregnant. The VA stated they would pay all expense plus delivery and 6 weeks after delivery, however they never paid anything. She was born early and thankfully only stayed in hospital 11 days. However it raked up $76,000 in debt. Two years later theVA had her as a dependent but still hadn’t paid the bills and so they were turned over to collections. I had to file for bankruptcy. I have had some work done with the VA and when they neglected to give me antibiotics after a surgery, an outside hospital did. Now I have bills from them, even though I was suppose to be covered. I am still recovering from bankruptcy and can’t afford more medical bills that the VA says they will cover but won’t. My question is how do I recover and what is my next move. Do I sue the VA for the bankruptcy or just the recent bills?
Jim's Reply:
Whenever I hear that "VA said they would pay my bills" and similar, I have to question if the veteran has that in writing? If you don't have a written statement, there's a lot of doubt that VA owes anything. The VA rarely if ever agrees to pay any bills in advance and I'm not aware of any guarantees for expenses of labor and delivery. You'll have to start by talking with your Congressional representatives to determine if any errors were made by VA and go from there.