Free Republic

Link Only..................... http://www.militarytimes.com/story/veterans/2015/07/15/ig-report-la-shred-bins-disability-claims-va-veterans-affairs-los-angeles/30197103/

Waste: The VA says it will shut down some hospitals if it doesn't get more money this year. Meanwhile, almost a third of those trying to enroll died before getting a decision. What do these things have in common?

According to a leaked internal document from the Department of Veterans Affairs, nearly one-third of veterans awaiting healthcare coverage at the VA have already died. The April 2015 report, leaked to the Huffington Post by VA whistleblower Scott Davis, indicates that 238,657 of the 847,882 veterans waiting to be enrolled in VA healthcare are already dead, suggesting that over 28 percent of veterans applying for health coverage perished while waiting for it. VA spokeswoman Walinda West played down the number, insisting that some of those listed as having “pending” status may well have not completed their applications for healthcare coverage...

An internal Veterans Affairs Department report states that about one-third of the veterans waiting to receive medical care from the agency have already died. ... as of April, 847,822 veterans were awaiting healthcare and that of those, 238,647 were already deceased. The report was handed over by Scott Davis, a program specialist at the VA's Health Eligibility Center in Atlanta He also sent copies to the House and Senate VA panels and to the White House. ... VA wants you to believe, by virtue of people being able to get health care elsewhere, it's not a big deal. But VA...

The Department of Veteran's Affairs apparently doesn't have time for the nation's veterans and recently turned at least one young man away after he sought treatment for PTSD. The excuse? The VA just isn't "taking new patients right now." ... Iraq war veteran Chris Dorsey figured that no one would believe he had been turned away from a U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs clinic when he sought an appointment for post-traumatic stress disorder. So when he went on Tuesday to another facility, the VA Oakwood, Georgia, Community Based Outpatient Clinic, he flipped on his smartphone camera. ... Unforunately, Dorsey's case...

In a new James O’Keefe video doctors, staffers, and a top official are captured on hidden camera speaking about the problems that continue to plague the Department of Veterans Affairs. VA doctor tells undercover Project Veritas journalist: “We’re way below water in terms of the ability to supply, to meet the requests that’s demanded.” According to VA Undersecretary/ Brigadier General: “Once you’ve entered the appeals process all bets are off, the only solution to that is changing the law or more people.”

When not pleading poverty, the Department of Veterans Affairs can be awfully careless with its money.

When not pleading poverty, the Department of Veterans Affairs can be awfully careless with its money.The latest example: In 2011, the VA set $43.1 million aside to produce brochures informing veterans about their benefits, then forgot about it. The money went unspent for three years and now might be lost for good.

This story broke some time ago, but it’s nevertheless worth flagging. Unconscionably, vermin — and pests — reportedly invaded the kitchen of a Florida Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital. The Tampa Bay Times reports: Workers at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center reported "3 large dead rats that fell through the kitchen ceiling" at the hospital during renovation work Wednesday night, according to emails obtained by the Tampa Bay Times. They then sent color photos of the rats to the facility's infection prevention coordinator, Miriam Ruisz, and also told her about a cockroach infestation, emails show. I almost gagged reading...

No one at the VA has gotten the ax for falsifying records that showed veterans waiting months for medical care. And no one will probably be fired for continued incompetence at the VA. Washington Times: The number of veterans seeking health  care but ending up on waiting lists of one month or more is 50 percent higher now than it was a year ago when scandal over false records and long wait times wracked the Department of Veterans Affairs, The New York Times reported. The VA also faces a budget  shortfall of nearly $3 billion, the Times reported in a story posted...

The number of veterans seeking health care but ending up on waiting lists of one month or more is 50 percent higher now than it was a year ago when a scandal over false records and long wait times wracked the Department of Veterans Affairs, The New York Times reported. The VA also faces a budget shortfall of nearly $3 billion, the Times reported in a story posted online ahead of its Sunday editions. The agency is considering furloughs, hiring freezes and other significant moves to reduce the gap, the newspaper reported. (snip) The Times also reported intense internal debate...

A few years ago New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was frequently heralding the Veterans Health Administration as a model of medical improvement in America. It is, he wrote, "a huge policy success story," that has "achieved a remarkable combination of rising quality and successful cost control." One wonders if Krugman is aware of this story.

Seth Moulton had earned two medals in Iraq for his valor. He’d witnessed brutal combat in four tours with the Marines. But none of that mattered when he showed up at the Veterans Health Administration hospital in Washington, D.C., where staff could not find records. “We’ll consider taking you as a humanitarian case,” a hospital staffer told Moulton, unaware that the would-be hernia patient was also a newly elected Massachusetts congressman. Thus began Moulton’s frustrating experience with the Veterans Affairs health system, a personal sampling of a chronically troubled medical bureaucracy that has drawn complaints from veterans, demands for improvements...

22 Veterans kill themselves every day. Why? I've seen this figure in print several times. These are people who were tough enough and strong enough and brave enough and dedicated enough and smart enough to make it through Basic Training, Specialty Skills Training (AIT) and the rigors of military duty. Yet, they are killing themselves when they get back to the United States. Why? The claim is that something horrible happened to them in combat. They have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. OK. Let's for arguments sake accept that every Veteran that commits suicide was involved in one or several horrible...

lint Eastwood’s hit movie American Sniper has brought home to Americans the trauma that many veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars bring back with them. An astonishing 22 veterans commit suicide every day, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. A disturbing and growing number are younger vets, many haunted by their experiences and poorly reintegrated into civilian life. In a 2014 survey of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, half said they knew another veteran who had attempted suicide. Investigator James O’Keefe, whose previous undercover videos have exposed scandals involving ACORN, PBS, and voter fraud, has interviewed people who raise...

A 99-year-old World War II veteran who wants to move from a Minnesota veterans' home to one in California is frustrated by a state law that requires six months of residency first. George Vandersluis grew up in Minneapolis and eventually settled in Fresno, California, where he raised his sons after the war. He returned to Minnesota after suffering a heart attack eight years ago to live in a Veterans Affairs facility in Hastings. KSTP first introduced you to Vandersluis, who is one of the last Pearl Harbor survivors, on Memorial Day.

<p>For years, Ryan Broderick has been trapped inside his mind, watching a constant reel of explosions that rocked the Army vehicles he had scrubbed of blood during three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.</p> <p>Since January, Broderick has been stuck inside a real jail, fortified by cinder blocks, surrounded by barbed wire. The government that Broderick upended his life to serve locked him up in Edgecombe County, about 75 miles east of Raleigh.</p>

In order to expand eligibility for the Veterans Choice Program, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) today announced that it will determine eligibility for the Veterans Choice Program based on the distance between a Veteran’s place of residence and the nearest VA medical facility using driving distance rather than straight-line distance. This change has been published in the Federal Register and is effective immediately. “VA is pleased to announce the distance calculation change from straight-line to driving distance for the Veterans Choice Program,” said Secretary Robert McDonald. “This update to the program will allow more Veterans to access care when...

The Seattle Veterans Affairs hospital is apologizing for leaving an Army veteran stranded outside its emergency room with a broken foot. Donald Siefken, 64, told The Seattle Times that hospital staff refused to help him move 10 feet through the emergency room doors. Siefken was told to call 911 for help instead. Siefken told the Times he fell while getting ready to drive his wife to Sea-Tac Airport in February. He said his foot started to swell and hurt during the drive. After dropping off his wife, Siefken drove to the VA hospital in Seattle. He said he was in too...

AUGUSTA — A federal law enforcement officer from Vermont was arrested in West Gardiner on Wednesday after allegedly aiming a loaded handgun at another vehicle on Interstate 95. Maine State Police officers arrested Demitria Buhalis, 41, of Brownsville, Vermont, and charged her with aggravated criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, a Class C felony, said Lt. Aaron Hayden. Buhalis is a police officer at the White River Junction VA Medical Center in Vermont, Hayden said. Hayden said a man driving south on I-95 in Sidney called police just before noon to report that a woman who drove past him in...