I’ve heard a few commentators (former military & civilian) who make SENSE regarding the VA situation:
They fault the bureaucrats/civil service govt. workers from the ground-up, rather than the medical personnel, which sounds logical, considering those govt./civil/civilian personnel do NOT relate with military personnel very well, and it seems, do NOT related very well with PHYSICIANS, who try to get the veteran the proper care in the most efficient time-frame.
Point in case, is the physician who 1st tried to blow the whistle years ago. She’s going thru ‘hell’ because she tried to save lives. pffffttttt! I say find the 1st govt. civil worker who denied the physician warnings; who did NOT pass them further ‘up the line’....find them and fire them, 1st, and go up from there.
Sooo, will the POLITICIANS allow another bureaucrat, AND one who was one step away from Shinseki...** who MIGHT have been one of the ‘stop-gaps’ that Shinseki TRUSTED to give him the truth about the troubles, but did NOT...?... WHY not put a high-ranking non-com in the top position?? They relate!! They are the backbone of the military, non? That person could probably clean up the whole MESS, easily.
Begin REPLACING those at the BOTTOM of the rungs with the civilian/govt. civil workers who push the paper, or in the case of DECADES of inefficiency, slow it down for BONUS reasons!
Shinseki could not do his JOB properly without receiving ALL the information...and too much of that was WITHHELD from him. It is, seemingly, the old saying about the ‘enlisted being afraid to give bad news to the officers.’
“Shinseki could not do his JOB properly without receiving ALL the information...and too much of that was WITHHELD from him.”
Shinseki spent his career with men and women of honor and character ... I don’t think he realized that when he move to civilian government that was no longer the case