Posted on 05/17/2014 7:56:19 AM PDT by darkwing104
The Veterans Administration (VA) “waiting list” scandal and allegations of a cover-up have tarnished the reputation of an agency that was created to help America’s veterans. The Phoenix VA hospital is at the eye of the storm, engaging in a behavior pattern of falsifying medical records in order to conceal lengthy delays in the keeping of patient appointments. To date four other VA facilities are also under investigation. Around the country numerous whistle-blowers are speaking up exposing an institutional behavior of hospital mangers putting bonuses before health care.
VA Secretary Eric Shinseki has ordered a nationwide review of clinics at VA Medical Centers across the country in order to assess veterans’ access to care. Of course, Shinseki ordered the review only because the House Veteran’s Affairs Committee had grown tired of being stonewalled by VA leadership and issued a subpoena in an attempt to force the VA into providing information relating to the "wait list" scandal. Clearly, VA senior leadership was playing a “wait list” game with Congress just as their clinics had been with patients. Being an election year this scandal is here to stay since both sides of the aisle are calling for action. After all, the American people sympathize with victims of bureaucratic abuse, especially when those victims have served in the military.
VA acting Inspector General Richard J. Griffin testified before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee this week, promising to complete an “exhaustive review” of VA practices by August.
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
obamacare meet the VA.
Obama and crew are incompetents. But they do realize the importance of ‘optics.’ Like the optics of nominating a VA head that worked in one of the very hospitals that is accused of this big coverup.
We will now be treated to some new diversionary distraction about Sterling, or Madonna, or Oprah, or that new Lesbian TV series with the lesbian comedienne (yeah, I went there)who couldn’t hold onto Portia Rossi, and Elisha Cuthbert.
The treatment you receive from the VA is a microcosm of the natonal healthcare the libs hope we will all be under.
Obama blew the dust off his fill in the blanks Accountability Speech ,now everything will be alright ,D’oh
I would agree to the extent that scandal after scandal will erupt. This future is a direct result of selecting Third World administrators merely because they are Third World. The second flaw is like unto the first: i.e. selecting female administrators merely because they are female. The concept of integrity, competency and a concern for the welfare of all is dead.
The Dark Underside of this Marxist administration and all the bureaucrats sucking up to it is beginning to become so apparent that even the MSM might just take notice on one of the inside pages. This scandal goes to the heart of the future of Obamacare and everyone’s health care. IOW its beginning to show the nation that Socialized Medicine is a total failure no matter what it is called and how much money is spent propagandizing its virtues.
VA medical care has been a scandal since I was in medical school thirty years ago. I did both inpatient and outpatient rotations at several facilities during those years, and others in my specialty during residency. I’m also a vet, a Hospital Corpsman who saw some minor combat episodes off the coast of Cambodia and Vietnam when they fell. In addition, my brother, ex-Coast Guard, chose to get many years of - frankly, quite poor, but free - care from the VA, and watching his gradual slide into avoidable invalidism and eventual premature death was hard to watch.
The problem is systemic: central government bureaucracies are simply incapable of providing the best, or even good care. Why?
First, such entities are never primarily concerned with their primary mission - in this case healthcare. They are instead focused on issues of self-perpetuation, ie funding and power. This is largely true of the individual doctors and other medical personnel within the entity as well, focused first on job security and advancement, and the ultimate pension, and focused on fulfilling bureaucratic requirements that will not jeopardize those - even at the expense of putting in real effort to offer better care for the Vets. Docs who primarily want to get people well are generally not attracted to such bureaucracies. No apologies to those offended by my remarks - I know whereof I talk.
The second source of failure is that the system is set up as an entitlement. Given the choice of the VA or some other route to health care - a choice most vets actually have, those who choose a government entitlement are generally less likely to have a lot going for them in terms of factors that would impact their health, such as lifestyle, motivation to work, etc. Again, no apologies for pointing out the obvious, even if someone’s offended.
I am currently drafting a re-write of a letter I started several years ago, addressed to all those in power in the government and in veterans organizations. The proposal in my letter is simple: since a Federal bureaucratic approach to healthcare for vets has almost no chance of working, why not instead use an approach something like charter schools: each vet is given a voucher to seek out his/her own healthcare in the private sector. This gives them the ability to go to doctors and various types of paraprofessionals and clinics and rehab centers and such who are only in business because they actually get people well and keep them well, and do it in an expedient manner.
Why do we need a super expensive VA hospital system? Why can’t vets get treatment at a local hospital?
This scandal is showing us what will happen when the only healthcare is government provided and determined by non-medical bureaucrats (Death Panels anyone?).
Exactly, that is why I choose the civilian route. I believe I am alive today because of it.
It’s plain for everyone to see that the Democrats are stalling the Veterans so as to use the money to buy votes.
Here at the Lebanon VA in PA they used to have signs that read "Veterans First" (back in the 90's).
Those signs were removed and it has become clear to many of us that the attitude is gone too.
Glad to here that!
I have a lot of vets who come to me after years of poor treatment at the VA - They all get well, and quickly, and stay well.
When a Vet gets educational money, they don’t send the Vet to VA universities - they give the Vet, essentially, a voucher to go to school with everyone else.
When a Vet wants to by a home, they don’t make him buy one in “VA Housing” somewhere - they essentially give the Vet a voucher to get a home just like everyone else has.
Why they started this “hospital” system, instead of a voucher system, is unexplainable, but why they keep trying to make it work (if they even are really trying) is beyond bizarre.
Well, the reputation has been tarnished in the eyes of those who were unaware of how bad VA healthcare has always been.
The biggest component of the damage control on this seems to be making an effort to promote the idea that the Federal Government had proven capable of providing adequate single payer healthcare in the past, and that this is somehow new.
The delay and deny tactics that were/are being deployed at the Veterans’s hospitals are just the warm up act for Obamacare. It will be bet resting to see how the administration handles this latest scandal because it is a foretaste of what the rest of the country is about to experience.
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