More VA Problems Exposed
by Big Dog on May 28, 2014 at 17:23 Military, Obamacare
The single payer, government run health care system known as the VA is in a shambles. It has been a boondoggle since its inception but has gotten worse over the years. While Democrats will claim that the problem is the large influx of patients because of the wars they voted for, the reality is the system did not run well when we were not at war.
The problems at the VA predate Obama (and Bush though Democrats think the history of bad starts with him) and as such Obama does not shoulder the blame for the problems there. He shoulders the blame because they are still there and are worse.
Candidate Obama blasted President Bush and the VA system and President elect Obama promised to fix things. He did not fix them. In fact things are much worse now and Obama is responsible for that. He was aware of the problems (despite his claims to the contrary) and he did NOT fix them as he promised.
There is now a news story that the problems at the VA in Phoenix are much worse than originally reported. Forty veterans are reported to have died while on a secret waiting list designed to allow administrators to claim great patient wait times and collect bonuses. Veterans died while waiting for care as administrators received bonuses for the great jobs they were doing. The Phoenix VA, according to an Inspector General’s report, has as many as 1,700 veterans awaiting care but who are not on the official waiting list.
This means that they might never receive care. Additionally, their absence from the list is designed to show the VA in a favorable light.
For more on how the scheme works read this article about the VA in Texas. There are supporting documents to show the top person cancelled and manipulated appointments in order for him and other executives to receive bonuses. Fifty percent of their bonus rating is based upon patient wait times so they manipulated those times to appear as if they were in compliance. They did not care about the veterans, only their own money and careers. These folks should end up in jail.
The Texas run system even received an award despite being investigated for these criminal acts in the past. There is overwhelming evidence that the top person was involved and made the changes but the conflicts were blamed on low level employee error which was than touted as something discovered and fixed (it was not). Looks like these folks follow Obama’s example of leadership; blame others…
There is another report that involves the VA but is about police brutality and not directly related to the scheduling scandal (but part of a corrupt culture nonetheless). An elderly vet was beaten and stomped by VA cops and suffered a stroke that subsequently resulted in his death.
America, is this how we should be treating our veterans?
Ideally, veterans should receive their care in the open market (with the bill paid for by the government) and not be restricted to government run socialized medicine. But if that will not happen then the VA should hire veterans to run its facilities. Veterans who have health care experience should be hired to work in those facilities. And veterans who served as military police should be police officers in the VA. These folks know what their fellow veterans have gone through and what kind of treatment they deserve.
The government should also remove all bonuses. This scheme only encourages people to cook the books.
If I ran any VA hospital I would not accept a bonus and I would not cook the books. I would demand the highest standards of care and fire anyone who did not comply.
If the government can’t run a system that has been in place for decades and only involves a small part of the overall population why does anyone think government run health care for all is a good idea? What makes anyone think that eventually Obamacare will be any different?
Government run care will always end up like this. People become a burden to the system and are abused because of it.
Look out America; you will soon be subject to this.
Let’s pass a law that all members of Congress and the Obama regime MUST receive their health care at a VA facility with no VIP treatment whatsoever.
I bet it would get fixed then… (Big Dog salute to Marcus Luttrell)
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: bonus, Obama, scandal, single payer, socialism, VA, veterans
don’t ;ike socialized medicine
? don’t use it. The VA isn’t perfect and never will be, It has always been underfunded and it is now getting hit with vets who are 45% of the time claiming a permanent injury. It is swamped.
Nice try. The VA funding has increased dramatically over the years but the care is even worse. The number of people working there is huge but only one in four provide care. The reality is it is government run so bloated and mismanaged. The private sector would do it better and cheaper.