Posted on 05/22/2014 5:07:25 AM PDT by SJackson
The Veterans Administration hospital scandal that has claimed the lives of at least 40 U.S. military veterans continues to expand, adding to the image of a president who neither knows nor cares what happens to those who shed their blood on the battlefield for their fellow Americans.
With a little under six months before the crucial midterm elections, it is a helpful reminder to voters of the horrors that are not glitches, but essential features, of government-provided health care. The problems at the VA are omens, sneak previews of what the delivery of all health care in America will look like under Obamacare, and so it is fortuitous that the scandal should surface now.
President Obama is predictably, perfunctorily, outraged about these bad things that have been happening in the government he controls. He is shocked and promises to get to the bottom of the issue and do better in the future. It is tedious stuff.
The happenings at the VA are also more evidence, Obama critics say, that the president despises the military. Obama has been moving to reduce soldier pay and benefits and hollow out the military to mid-century staff levels. He has also been going on a human resources rampage, firing flag officers at a rate that alarms military observers. And like any good leftist, Obama believes that the only good American soldier is one who is functioning as a social worker, not a war-fighter.
Meanwhile, Obama VA officials have been working overtime covering up the various waiting list atrocities that have been popping up cross the country.
A whistleblower who exposed the waiting list scandal in Fort Collins, Colorado, says she was suspended after she refused to falsify records.
Lisa Lee, who was employed at that clinic, said she was placed on two weeks of unpaid leave for not following a directive that involved “cooking the books” on scheduling medical appointments to create the false impression that appointments were made closer to the time veterans requested.
“Why are they throwing me under the bus when I’m trying to say what the problem is?”
At least 40 U.S. veterans have died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix, Ariz., Veterans Affairs Health Care system, CNN reported April 30. Many of the dead had been put on a secret waiting list.
That list was reportedly part of an elaborate scheme designed by Veterans Administration officials who were attempting to conceal the fact that between 1,400 and 1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a physician.
The VA requires its hospitals to provide care to patients in a timely manner, usually within 14 to 30 days, according to Dr. Sam Foote who just retired after working at the Phoenix facility for 24 years. He said officials destroyed evidence to cover up the existence of the bogus waiting list.
VA officials “wouldn’t take you off that secret list until you had an appointment time that was less than 14 days so it would give the appearance that they were improving greatly the waiting times, when in fact they were not,” Foote said.
Foote said the waiting times in Phoenix that were reported to VA headquarters in Washington were make-believe. “So then when they did that, they would report to Washington, ‘Oh yeah. We’re makin’ our appointments within — within 10 days, within the 14-day frame,’ when in reality it had been six, nine, in some cases 21 months,” he said.
Like the Benghazi scandal and the IRS targeting of conservative and Tea Party nonprofits, the VA scandal has legs.
Yet President Obama, who nowadays seems barely aware of what his administration is doing, claimed through a spokesman that he learned about this controversy that is rocking his administration from news reports.
It cannot be true. In fact Obama’s team was briefed on the long-running problems at the VA by the outgoing Bush administration during the transition process in 2008.
The Washington Times obtained government documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) that showed that the “Obama administration received clear notice more than five years ago that VA medical facilities were reporting inaccurate waiting times and experiencing scheduling failures that threatened to deny veterans timely health care.”
VA officials told the Obama-Biden transition team in the weeks following Obama’s election that the agency should not rely on the waiting times that VA facilities were reporting.
“This is not only a data integrity issue in which [Veterans Health Administration] reports unreliable performance data; it affects quality of care by delaying — and potentially denying — deserving veterans timely care,” the officials wrote.
Of course, if the Obama administration had simply failed to do anything about the problem, that would be one thing, but Obama officials doctored government records to airbrush the problem away. This is why patient advocates and lawmakers are demanding the head of the guy in charge, the hapless Veterans Affairs secretary, Eric Shinseki.
Shinseki testified before a congressional panel last week and came across as being out of his depth, claiming he was as angry about the deadly bureaucratic bungling as anyone. Maybe he was sincere; maybe he wasn’t.
A lapdog and a yes man for the Obama White House, Shinseki has retired from the armed forces. But there was no need for him to step down from the Pentagon. Shinseki is the ideal Obama general: left-wing, incompetent, obedient to the point of servility, and a member of an identifiable minority group.
History shows pretty conclusively that governments are very, very bad at providing health care services and the Veterans Administration has a long, inglorious history of patient abuse and neglect that has stretched out over decades.
The VA system is outdated and doomed. It cannot work. Like Obamacare, it is based on the insane notion that medical services can be provided effectively outside of markets.
Obamacare, as people seem to be realizing, is just like the VA system and government-run systems abroad. These lethal queues are an everyday occurrence in United Kingdom and Canada where news headlines about the failings of socialized medicine keep teams of reporters busy.
Politicians in those countries are continually outraged by government health care failures. They tell voters they will fix the problems. Yet somehow the problems never get fixed. Everyone is just a number.
Those who are honest about what happens in those countries acknowledge that those individuals and groups with political clout get the best treatment; those without, suffer and die prematurely. If your medical malady lacks political sex appeal, too bad for you.
The provision of health care inevitably degenerates into interest group warfare among epidemiological lobbies.
It is useful to think of a variation of the old tax collector’s adage, that one about getting the greatest amount of feathers with the least amount of squawking. In this case, politicians and bureaucrats, instead of consumers and providers, function as health care allocators.
Their task, whether they are aware of it or not, becomes taking away the greatest amount of benefits so that it results in the least amount of squawking from patients.
This is the essence of the Obamacare-mandated “death panels” about which Sarah Palin wisely cautioned her countrymen.
The Veterans Administration scandal is a dire warning to the American public about what awaits them if the Obamacare train is not soon derailed.
Should any one wonder what kind of disaster Obama- care will be like all they have o do look at the VA- Scandal and consider it to be a foreplay or overture as to what the real thing will be like, just multiplied by ten. Not to mention that Obama-care has little to do with governmental compassion for the general public, but has everything to do with consolidating the power of the ruling party in order to keep them in power for perpetuity. If you think otherwise you may be interested in buying a bridge in you know where. It is just one scandal after another characteristic and endemic of a bunch of socialist crooks, who are not just crooks but dumb crooks to boot.
Just consider Fast & Furious primarily designed to implement tighter gun control and further restriction of the Second Amendment in this country, even so it was denied by our government. But one of the dead give away was when it became public knowledge the first thing Hillary did, a dyed in the wool socialist, was to call for tighter gun control “In this country” After some of the public wised up and it came to light that in reality it was the US government who was behind the gun running in to Mexico under the pretense and guise to track down narc traffic and the killings associated with it, all of a sudden with her cover blown Hillary shut up.
Then we had or still have Global Warming, which did not pan out as a possible tax revenue source for the government, so they changed it to Climate Change and when this did not work out as it was getting colder instead of warmer politicians changed it again, who knows what they are calling it now.
Then we have the IRS Scandal, one way to get rid of your opponents is to tax the hell out of them either directly or indirectly and punish the ones who contribute to your opponent. Gibson guitars was a good example when jackbooted, armed US government thugs showed up and shut them down, using all kinds of false and contrived pretenses, just because they contributed to the opposition. Luckily they had the resources to fight of the government.
Next we have Benghazi, for all we know as there may be more below the surface of corrupt and incompetent, dumb politicians. If we had a president with “Balls” the moment the Benghazi attack became known he should have made a few calls and give the order “What are you waiting for, kill those bastards” As Winston Churchill stated some time ago “Islam it to humans, just like rabbis to dogs” and he was right on the money and nothing has changed since, as the killings go on unabated.
It is unfortunate that a good portion of the American public is ignorant and dumb and politicians who got on to it, continue to serve up garbage to the gullible public who in turn swallows it hook line and sinker.
It will be interesting to see how it all ends up, as the American Dream is quickly fading while things are going from bad to worse. By nature I am optimistic but after watching and living it for over half a century, things over all certainly have not gotten any better.
The VA healthcare system is costing us big and giving us little results. Isn’t that what happens when Big Government takes over something that the private sector does well? The government trough is nothing but poison.
Very good article. Thanks for posting.
DEPOPULATE socialists/totalitarians from the body politic and DISMANTLE their
tax/insurance schemes that they FORCED upon us.
Plunder & death = $OCIALI$M.
BIG GOVERNMENT IS CRONY SOCIALISM.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
http://www.usa.gov/directory/federal/index.shtml?query
Debt panels diminish your time of life and death panels finish you off.
live - free - republic
Like....is there anything commie gummit tries to run or administer working out???
People of past commie block kicked commies out, privatized businesses and got going.
Nobama is trying to prove that he can single handedly screw America and sheeeeple are voting for it???
WAKE UP!!!
I thought that you made a substantial, thoughtful comment, but this concluding part bothers me: “By nature I am optimistic but after watching and living it for over half a century, things over all certainly have not gotten any better.” I can understand one’s being an optimist by nature but in light of the rest of the sentence, should you not add that recent experience certainly deflates such optimism? After all, the American electorate is now made up of a majority of low-information voters with no anticipated change of this situation in sight? Knowing that should make you say something along the lines of “This situation makes me feel much less optimistic.”
Oh, snap!
Post BUMP!
This will be one of the Top 3 Scandals of the Obama Administration. 1. ObamaCare 2. Benghazi 3. VA Death Panels
Isn’t it a darn shame no one told us years ago about this administration’s plan to impose death panels on us? s:/
He now notin??????
With this hugh NSA machine, that was supposed to spy on the world, US, and “protect” us from the terrorists?
Looks like the main purpose of NSA is to spy on “domestic terrorists” - regular people that dare to question commie conversion of USA, provide IRS with “vital” info to silence hard working people.
Where is the information trail about Benghazi, IRS, VA and other “accomplishments” by Hope & Change and Forward???
When will Congress critters use the NSA treasure trove to get the truth out and use people’s money for people????
Well it is in Obamacare,its called the Independent Payment advisory board. It is appointed by the president,can’t be appealed or repealed
Good question, Leo. Answer: I don't know. Criminals have taken over…the U.S.A. (United Socialists of America).
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