Category: Veterans’ Affairs Department

There’s so much going on in regards to the VA issue, it’s hard to do just one article every day. But, here some articles making the rounds. Our buddy, Coby Dillard writes in Pilot Online that which we’ve all said – the VA needs a personnel housecleaning, top-to-bottom;

Instead of demanding the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinsheki – an idea I wrote about last year – President Barack Obama has allowed him to continue in his role, despite having said in 2008 that there was “no one more qualified” to run the VA.

I wonder if he still shares that confidence, still believes that the best person to right this sorry ship is the same person whose side he stood by then. If so, that’s unfortunate, because very few veterans share it.

A sacrificial “resignation” does nothing to absolve those who are most responsible for the disrespect shown to our nation’s veterans. If Obama truly recognizes that, he will clean house at the VA, from the top down.

Here, in West Virginia, a former VA doctor comes out claiming that patients in the Huntington VA Medical Center in Charleston, WV system committed suicide while waiting for treatment according to Fox News;

Dr. Margaret Moxness, who says she was employed at the Huntington VA Medical Center in Charleston, W.Va., from 2008 to 2010, told “Fox & Friends” on Monday that she was told to delay treatment even after she told supervisors they needed immediate care. She said at least two patients committed suicide while waiting for treatment between appointments.

“I was in a very tight-knit community,” Moxness said. “There was lots of extracurricular support: family, faith, vet centers. So we had help, but no thanks to the VA. …I mean, these men were eventually going to need more than a visit every 10 months.”

Moxness, a psychiatrist, says the VA administrators lost touch with patients and claims they were compassionless.

The Daily Beast reports that even more VA hospitals are experiencing an outbreak of whistleblowers, for example in Albuquerque;

On March 19, 2014, for example, a patient with a deteriorating heart condition requested to see a doctor. The patient was finally seen only days ago, on May 16, when they were admitted to the hospital for decompensated heart failure. “A near miss” as the VA doctor familiar with the case described it. “He could have died before being seen.”

The Albuquerque VA did not respond to requests for comment but Ozzie Garza, Director of the VA Regional Office of Public Affairs, provided this statement to The Daily Beast: “We are not familiar with the allegations but will call immediately for an external review as we take all allegations seriously.”

Yeah, they take “allegations” seriously, but no one is ever held accountable for these violations of human decency. Supporters of a single-payer healthcare system should take note. This is a single-payer, government-run healthcare system and obviously it fails miserably because of the bureaucracy involved. Bureaucrats just don’t care about the people they serve – that’s just inherent in the system of bureaucracies.

Of course, the Left is saying that we need to pump more money into the VA in order to fix it, but what the VA system needs is an administrator who can properly manage the resources they already have before there is more money pumped into the system. Shinseki and his subordinates have proven time and again they are not qualified or interested in managing those resources effectively. They can declare thet they’re “mad as Hell” or “madder than Hell”, but that doesn’t fix the incompetent boobery.

Blackfive nominates David Petraeus to replace Shinseki. Me? I don’t care because an untrained ape could do what Shinseki has done to veterans. But, they need a leader, not a politician. fat chance that this administration knows the difference.

Speaking of this administration, Jay Carney, the Baghdad Bob of the current era, mischaracterized (lied about) the American legion’s response to the “firing” of VA official, Robert Petzel.

Here’s what Carney said at the White House briefing: “The American Legion said that the group looks at Petzel’s resignation as a, quote, step towards addressing the leadership problem at the VA. So I think that undercuts the assertion that that is not a meaningful development.”

Carney went on to cite the American Legion nine times during the briefing.

The White House explained that Carney was directly quoting from newspaper accounts citing the commander of the American Legion’s reaction to Petzel’s resignation.

But the American Legion put out a statement on Friday about Dr. Petzel’s resignation saying almost exactly the opposite of what Carney suggested.

“This move by VA is not a corrective action, but a continuation of business as usual,” American Legion National Commander Daniel M. Dellinger said in a statement. “Dr. Petzel was already scheduled to retire this year, so his resignation now really won’t make that much of a difference.”

So, I’m guessing that this White House doesn’t know what meaningful change will look like in the VA, since they can’t even read press release statements.

Stars & Stripes says that “Obama and Congress move to address VA firestorm” but it’s more like a bowel movement than meaningful reform (emphasis is mine);

The top official for veterans’ health care resigned Friday, and House Republicans scheduled a vote for Wednesday on legislation that would give Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki greater authority to fire or demote senior executives and administrators at the agency and its 152 medical centers.

Yeah, but what about removing Shinseki? When everything about the agency stinks, who removes the rotting head?

The Veterans Affairs Department has failed at absolutely everything that it’s done from the days that it couldn’t pay college benefits in a timely manner under the new Post 9-11 GI Bill. The agency had more than a year to figure that out before folks started getting kicked out of college and defaulting on their rent and food bills. The only thing they could come up was excuses.

That was a failure of leadership and that failure has continued for years, through the million-dollar conferences, the over-priced satire videos, the ridiculously large backlog of benefits claims and the more recent, but years-long healthcare issues.

Now even Congress is making excuses for Shinseki’s incompetence. Veterans and tax payers are awaiting some sort of accountability, but it looks like we’ll get none. Even the overseers won’t admit that Shinseki is the problem.

I even remember when Senator Murray asked for accountability from the VA in regards to the number of former POWs receiving benefits from the agency in stark contrast to the actual list at the the Department of Defense and the VA responded that they had only discovered two phony POWs, while we continue to find more every month. There are only a score of Desert Storm POWs, but the VA is paying benefits to hundreds and won’t admit to it. Who knows how many Vietnam and Korean War scams are being run against the agency? We even offered to do the work for the VA and they refused. I guess because they have such a stellar record of doing the stuff they should.

Our friend, Dana Milbank at the Washington Post and the editorial staff at the Army Times have both finally reached the conclusion that Eric Shinseki the Secretary of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs might be the problem at the department. From Milbank;

Worse was Shinseki’s response when he finally appeared before a congressional committee Thursday to answer questions about the scandal. He refused to acknowledge any systemic problem and declined to commit to do much of anything, insisting on waiting for the results of yet another investigation.

“If any allegations are true,” Shinseki told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, “they’re completely unacceptable to me.”

“If any are substantiated by the inspector general,” he said, “we will act.”

If?

Is there not already evidence of VA appointment schedulers cooking the books?

From the Army Times;

Simply put, things are getting worse, not better, in VA medical care. Veterans are the victims of systemic incompetence, negligence and possibly malfeasance.

In situations such as this, the buck must stop at the top: After five years on the job, it is time for VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to step down.

Finally, Jake Tapper at CNN asks how many dead veterans does this president need before he comes to realize that Shinseki “isn’t the best steward of these veterans”;

Nice of you guys to catch up to the opinions of all of the veterans at This Ain’t Hell, finally.