War Hero Fights VA, Medicare for Medical Care

Vernon Baker had to wait more than 50 years to receive his Medal of Honor because of racism. Now the World War II veteran is battling the U.S. government to receive medical coverage for a brain tumor.

With the help of Idaho politicians, Baker has started receiving some Veterans Administration and Medicare benefits. And residents of the town of St. Maries, Idaho, where Baker lives, are organizing a fundraiser to pay thousands of dollars in medical bills.

Baker, 85, is the epitome of “the Greatest Generation,” reared in a time of poverty, sacrifice and self-reliance. He hadn’t visited a doctor for decades when he started feeling ill last summer. Despite his Medal of Honor, Baker found himself in the same paperwork maze as thousands of others who wend their way through the federal healthcare system.

“It kind of makes me feel angry,” Baker said in a brief telephone interview. “I’m not able to take care of myself and it hurts me.”

Baker, the only living black Medal of Honor winner from World War II, was diagnosed in September with a brain tumor and was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for emergency surgery.

Because he had been so healthy for much of his life, Baker had overlooked the need to enroll for Veterans Administration and Medicare benefits. When his medical bills arrived, Baker and his wife were surprised to learn that the government did not intend to help pay them.

Patients must enroll with the VA to receive benefits and cannot be reimbursed for costs incurred before their enrollment, said Roxanne Sisemore, spokeswoman for the VA in Walla Walla, Wash.

Although some Medicare coverage kicks in automatically when a person reaches retirement age, coverage to pay doctors’ bills also requires enrollment, said Peter Ashkenaz, a Medicare spokesman in Washington, D.C.

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In 1944, Army Lt. Baker was sent to Italy with the all-black 92nd Infantry. On April 5, Baker and his men were behind enemy lines in the battle for Castle Aghinolfi near Viareggio, according to Army records.

Their commanding officer, who was white, left when the fighting started, ostensibly to seek reinforcements who never arrived, Baker wrote in his book, “Lasting Valor” (Genesis Press, 1997).

With German fire decimating the Americans, Baker took charge, moving from one machine-gun nest to another, killing the enemy soldiers inside. Then he covered the evacuation of his wounded comrades by drawing the enemy’s fire, according to Army records.

The next night, Baker voluntarily led an advance on the castle through enemy minefields and heavy fire.

In all, Baker and his platoon killed 26 Germans, destroyed six machine-gun nests, two observer posts and four dugouts. Their heroism enabled the Allies to take the castle shortly thereafter.

Baker was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, making him the most decorated black soldier in the Mediterranean Theater.

What he did not know was that his Medal of Honor nomination had been blocked by a military establishment that did not want to give the nation’s highest honor to blacks.

In 1993, Army officials commissioned Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C., to determine if any black soldiers had been improperly denied the Medal of Honor. The university reviewed past citations and recommended 10 soldiers; from that list, the Pentagon picked seven.

Baker was the only recipient still living. He received his award from President Clinton in 1997.

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Baker’s battle with insurance and creditors angers his friends.

“Someone held up as a hero all over the world, then he can’t get medical coverage. No one should have to go through that,” said Marilyn Fletcher, a neighbor who is organizing the March 19 fundraiser in St. Maries.

Baker appreciates the efforts and is trying not to let financial woes get him down.

“I’m hanging in there,” he said March 2. “Today, I feel pretty good.”

Baker stayed in the Army after the war, and retired in 1968 to St. Maries, a town of 2,400 in the Idaho Panhandle, about 70 miles southeast of Spokane.

He married and reared four daughters; mourned the passing of his wife, Fern; and married Heidy, who is German, about 15 years ago. They live in a cabin outside St. Maries, and he is an enthusiastic outdoorsman.

Baker’s speech began to slur last summer. His wife called Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane to seek a doctor’s appointment, but was told that Vernon wasn’t enrolled in the VA.

In late September, she took Baker to the emergency room at Benewah Medical Center in St. Maries, where an MRI showed the tumor in his brain.

He was flown to Seattle, where surgeons removed the baseball-sized malignancy Sept. 29, but left two tumors on his spine.

Baker returned home three weeks after his surgery, unable to do anything for himself. Heidy worried that she would lose her husband, but he began to eat and take his medication, and was able to walk and talk.

Then the bills arrived. The Bakers were responsible for his bills before the VA and Medicare kicked in, and they owed $20,000 to the company that flew him to Seattle.

The Bakers are not well-off, Heidy Baker said, “but I have made payments on everything.”