Posted on 05/27/2014 2:33:01 PM PDT by LucianOfSamasota
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in an interview that Washington’s cost-cutting culture helped spark the growing Veterans Administration hospital controversy by encouraging VA officials to understate their financial needs both internally and to Congress.
Murray, a top appropriator and former chairwoman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, had strong words for a department that she said not only faces chronic management issues but also consistently underestimates its funding needs and how many veterans will seek care each year. Though many Republicans have called for current VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to step down from his post in light of reports of secret waiting lists at VA hospitals across the county, Murray focused on cultural issues that extend deeper than one official.
“In an environment where everybody is told, 'Keep the cost down. Don't tell me anything costs more.' — it creates a culture out there for people to cook the books,” Murray said in an interview with Yahoo News. Administrators learn to “hide the facts, because they don't want to be told by their bosses, 'Don't tell me you need more money, because we can't say that,'” she added.
“Well, in the VA, if they need more money, they need to be able to tell us, because how else are we going to solve these problems,” Murray said. “So we have to change that culture and mindset.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
You gotta hope this woman is too stupid to breed. A child from her gene poll would have a heavy cross to bear...
I’m sure it had nothing to do with the vast quivering bureaucratic mass of stupid.
The culture is one of federal employee entitlement.
Spending is up 35% for the VA in the past 5 years, they spend additional millions on bonuses, and the problem is a cost-cutting culture. Got it.
Cost-cutting culture??
In government??
Surely you jest!
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash,takes her talking orders from AFGE President Cox.
And a report out today said that for the FIFTH year in a row the VA budget is more than they could spend!
Senator Murray, please tell us how much overtime was clocked by admin over at the VA over the past 3 years during this ‘cost-cutting’ period?
P Murry won the dumbist congressional award 3 years in a row, until Clemens came along.
They spent lavishly on the administrators’ redecorating projects, etc., and giving them bonuses. The administrator in Phoenix was still going to get his bonus, even after the secret waiting list was found out.
She finds it so easy to lay blame on others, instead of really addressing the issue, which is, that they had to show Vets going off the roles, so they hid them, to make the accounting looked better.
It was all a sham.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read stuff like this. I’d like to laugh because its such obvious BS spewed in a Pavlovian, dogmatic way by some Dem hack like Murray. But I will end up crying because if the media has told this lie enough that our low information voting base believes it.
If a private company delivers an inferior product at an inflated price, they go out of business.
If the feral government delivers an inferior product at an inflated price, they just stick a gun in your face and say you're not giving them enough.
I stopped reading after I saw the Term “Top Senator” in the same sentence with “Patty Murray”.
Patty Murray is as dumb as a Box of Barbara Boxers, and that’s saying something. At Cocktail Parties, even Anvils, Hammers and Rocks mock her.
See how well it worked for IQ points, Patty? I guess not.
Good grief...how blitheringly stupid.
Maybe the solution to this is to make senators and
congressmen, subject to VA health care instead of the
gold plated policies they now have.
I knew this was a demorat just from the headline...
Dems are going to capture this and blame GOP.
Just you watch.
Somebody water Patty - her leaves are looking a little brownish around the edges.
What lies. The VA Budget in 2009 was $97.7 billion. In 2014 it was $153.8 billion. The amount dedicated to discretionary (as opposed to mandatory benefits) increased from $47 billion in 2009 to $63.4 million in 2014, which is 35% increase just for medical care. And yet the problem is the “culture of cost containment.”
I’d love to see productivity comparisons between the VA and large private sector providers but I am sure it would not look good from a cost per patient perspective.
Well there is always the bag of hammers or the box of rocks debate about which is dumber.
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