Posted on 07/28/2014 12:38:46 PM PDT by lilyramone
A bipartisan deal to improve veterans' health care would authorize at least $17 billion to fix the health program scandalized by long patient wait times and falsified records covering up delays, the bill's chief supporters said Monday.
The agreement includes $10 billion in emergency spending to make it easier for veterans who can't get prompt appointments with Veterans Affairs doctors to obtain outside care; $5 billion to hire doctors, nurses and other medical staff; and about $1.5 billion to lease 27 new clinics across the country, the chairmen of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs committees said.
The bill also would expand a scholarship program for veterans to include surviving spouses of military members who died in the line of duty, allow all veterans to qualify for in-state college tuition, and grant the VA secretary authority to immediately fire senior executives, while providing employees with streamlined appeal rights.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Just more hogs at the trough and the taxpayers continue to fill the trough.
Only in government can you screw up, and demand a raise and more authority.
Government is the Peter Principle on steriods.
1) Give every veteran a universal platinum health insurance card, good for 80% of charges at any hospital, outpatient/surgery center, or medical office. Acceptance required at UCR -20%, discount mandatory, balance billing forbidden.
2) Close every VA hospital and lay off every administrator and other parasite associated with them.
3) Give academic medical centers now supposedly delivering care to veterans three years of transition funding, set at 75%, 50%, 25% to transition the physicians to practices to treat veterans and to replace their "research" funding which is coming out of veteran's benefits now to competitive funding or philanthropy.
Done. Problem solved.
Like every Federal agency, the solution is to throw a s**tpile of more money at it, kick up some dust, and allow the next gaggle of incompetents to get the grift they have coming.
What was all the money the VA has in their budget and is apparently not spending going for?
We had people fired or embarassed for setting up these fake “delay” lists.
Are there computers that can develop those lists or not? If not, where did those lists come from?
Do they need like a bunch of new potted palms for the lobbies of their facilities?
They had people who failed at their jobs. OK, so you fire those people and replace with other people. Why daoes that take a budget increase?
This is just sick as hell, and every damn politician is bent over backwards scrambling to throw more money at this, while the 11-second attention span of the American people gradually paints the whole thing onto the rearview mirror.
Why not just disband the corrupt government run VA and allow the veterans to use vouchers which could be used in the civilian medical industry?
A GOOD sound SENSIBLE idea. Now if we could just find someone at the political level who will see it through and make it a REALITY.
Why not just disband the corrupt government (?)
Totally agree with the vouchers but what about the benefit to all veterans who served? Many join for that life long benefit and should get it for leaving the civilian cushy world and serving.
If ya only handed out med benefits for those injured while in the service, that wouldn't be any different than what workers comp provides to all non-veterans.
Not much of an incentive OR benefit for all those who gave up *years* of their lives to serve.
Good grief! Just split the 17B between the vets. Screw the agency!
Do you think those severely wounded vets would get private insurance with pre-existing conditions?
No, and that's not my proposal.
My proposal is to give them insurance and require its acceptance by every health-related business in the country.
I would require that they receive a 20% discount (it's the least we can do) and that the government pay the rest, no questions asked.
I would not ask the existing insurance system to participate in the program.
There is already a functioning (so far) system capable of taking care of all veterans needs - all the government has to do is pay the bills.
Well, I’d settle for just reducing the size and scope of government including the military bureaucrats in D.C./Pentagon.
I’d settle for a 60% cut of all levels of govenrment across the board, outside those actually serving in combat types units, warships etc, and then pass laws forbidding it to increase, ever.
Of course it’s probably too late for that Don since big gov is now the biggest employer in all the land and has more unionized employees than private sector America...
It probably too late and eventually just eats us all alive.
Notice how government fixes for any problem start and end with the expenditure of vast sums of new money.
But rarely is there any accountability, significant reorganization, or correction of the root causes of the problem.
The “Throw More Money At It” solution holds true for republicans and democrats.
In the private sector, you get fired or go out of business when you screw up. In government, you get showered with billions of extra dollars on top of the billions and billions you already get.
I assume the proposed “insurance card” would work like a Medicare card, funded by savings from the second proposal, dismantling the VA system.
I dont’d know about closing them all. Seems to me it would be smart to consolidate into maybe a dozen regional centers which would handle only military specific injuries like injuries from explosives, burns and chemicals. Funnel everything into the vet’s local hospital and pay the friggin bill.
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