Another disgusting scandal for the Obama administration. More than 30 veterans died because of corruption and incompetence, Obama’s trademark.
Data shows that if you’re fighting for the wrong side (Al Qaeda), you got better healthcare than American veterans.
Krungman and liberal progressives used to spout off that the VA was a “model” system of socialized medicine, a model for Obamacare. I guess they were correct; Va death panels in action, and coming soon to our entire healthcare system. Bathhouse Barry will probably skate on this scandal, like all the rest. He is accountable to nobody, responsible for nothing, a vacuum tube devoid of leadership. We’re doomed.
Al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo treated better than our vets
By J.D. Gordon Published May 23, 2014
President Obama finally addressed the nation Wednesday about the growing scandal at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. After meeting with VA Secretary Eric Shinseki he pledged to hold folks accountable.
Thanks, Mr. President.
By now most American have heard about the VA’s infamous patient “secret wait lists” which reportedly contributed to the deaths of up to 40 veterans in the Phoenix area alone. Those patriots were American heroes who served our country proudly. Yet they were left to die waiting to see a doctor.
While the Gitmo ratio is 1.5 to 1, for America’s 9 million veterans receiving VA health care and 267,930 VA employees, the ratio is 35 to 1.
Here’s another secret the White House doesn’t want you to know about the VA. Al Qaeda detainees get better medical treatment than our veterans.
Say what?
Yes, it’s true. I know because I served as a Pentagon spokesman from 2005-2009 and visited Guantanamo Bay Naval Base over 30 times during those years.
Despite the fact that Al Qaeda terrorists carried out the Sept. 11 terror attacks, killing 3,000 people in America, the admitted co-conspirators and their roughly 150 fellow jihadists at Gitmo have approximately 100 doctors, nurses and health care personnel assigned to them.
Doctors and medical personnel are at their beck and call. Got a cold, a fever, a toothache, a tumor, chest or back pain, mental health issues, PTSD? No problem, come right on in. Military doctors are waiting to see you.
The VA and Gitmo eligible patient-to-health care provider ratios speak volumes.
While the Gitmo ratio is 1.5 to 1, for America’s 9 million veterans receiving VA health care and 267,930 VA employees, the ratio is 35 to 1.
But beyond the Gitmo numbers, the situation at the VA is also a bright, shining example of misguided priorities and terrible mismanagement.
In late 2008, when Obama was president-elect, he and his staff were warned not to trust the wait times reported by VA health care facilities. But instead of fixing the problem, their focus was closing Guantanamo and improving the comfort of detainees. Even though they already lived under some of the best prison conditions ever seen.
While some who see “2008” may reflexively say, “blame Bush, not Obama” the fact is that the VA’s health system has been fatally flawed for years, regardless of who has been the president.
The VA is a classic example of big government gone wild. It is America’s second largest cabinet agency after the Defense Department. Since civil service promotions are traditionally based more on seniority than performance, and it’s near impossible to fire anyone, there’s a punch-the-clock mentality that’s pervasive. Not surprisingly, there’s little to no sense of urgency. So to instill incentives, the VA shells out high salaries and bonuses, deserved or not.
According to a Fox News report, Phoenix VA hospital paid staff up to $357,000 for doctor executives and $147,000 for nursing staff. On average, doctors and nurses in Phoenix make just over half those figures.
Meanwhile, the gardening budget at Phoenix VA hospital was over $180,000 in 2013. The facility also spent $211,000 on interior design over the past three years.
If any government entity ever needed a complete overhaul, it’s the VA. If it were in the private sector, it would have been shuttered long ago.
Today’s VA has near zero accountability, while labor unions fight to protect employees who aren’t doing their jobs. Shinseki and his senior staff should be the first to go.
President Obama needs to refocus his priorities. There must be less time, effort and energy caring for Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at Gitmo and much more attention put on caring for America’s veterans.
Our veterans have served the nation proudly. In many cases they were gravely wounded during their service and now will require a lifetime of medical support. Every one of them deserves better.
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Obama’s incompetence knows no bounds….
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Old poster …. true back then, true today ….
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American Soldier = Human Canon Fodder
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WHO’S SIDE ARE YOU ON?
Whose.
YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK
Obama 2008: VA will be ‘leader of health care reform’
N.Y. Times columnist cited ‘huge success story’ of ‘socialized medicine’
WASHINGTON — It’s one of those promises the president would probably like to forget.
In vowing to make the Veterans Administration the model of national health-care reform back in 2008, the outlook for scandal-plagued Obamacare suddenly seems even worse.
WND has discovered that during his transition into the White House in 2008-09, President Obama proposed in his “Obama-Biden” plan to “make the VA a leader of national health care reform so that veterans get the best care possible.”
However, instead of fixing the VA, the administration has had to defend its role in the death of veterans by neglect.
Meanwhile, WND is reporting that eight years earlier, in a failed run for Congress, Obama unveiled a sweeping health-care plan that modeled aspects of the Veterans Administration’s medical system.
The VA problems became a national sensation April 14 when CNN reported that at least 40 U.S. veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix VA, many of whom were placed on a secret waiting list.
The discovery of the Obama-Biden VA plan fits a pattern that has come to light this week in which Obama repeatedly warned, or was warned, of serious problems at the VA but apparently did little in response.
In the document labeled the Obama-Biden Plan from the Office of the President Elect, Obama makes a series of promises to veterans, including:
Fix the Benefits Bureaucracy: Hire additional claims workers, and improve training and accountability so that VA benefit decisions are rated fairly and consistently. Transform the paper benefit claims process to an electronic one to reduce errors and improve timeliness.
Strengthen VA Care: Make the VA a leader of national health care reform so that veterans get the best care possible. Improve care for polytrauma vision impairment, prosthetics, spinal cord injury, aging, and women’s health.
Fully Fund VA Medical Care: Fully fund the VA so it has all the resources it needs to serve the veterans who need it, when they need it. Establish a world-class VA Planning Division to avoid future budget shortfalls.
The Obama-Biden plan seems to have fallen so far short of its promise to “Fix the Benefits Bureaucracy” that the VA itself has admitted 23 vets have died waiting for care, and investigations of possible death-by-neglect have spread to 26 VA facilities around the country.
As WND has reported, Obama was warned about severe problems at the VA repeatedly over the years, even before he became president.
WND discovered that Obama was briefed on problems at the VA as far back as 2005, when he was a senator and a member of the Veterans Affairs committee.
In a 2007 speech, Sen. Obama said, “Keeping faith with those who serve must always be a core American value and a cornerstone of American patriotism. Because America’s commitment to its servicemen and women begins at enlistment, and it must never end.”
The Washington Times reported Monday that the Obama administration received notice more than five years ago that VA medical facilities were reporting inaccurate waiting times and experiencing scheduling failures that threatened to deny veterans timely health care.
VA officials reportedly warned the Obama-Biden transition team in the weeks after the 2008 presidential election that the wait times the facilities were reporting were not trustworthy.
More recently, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., wrote a letter to Obama on May 21, 2013, that warned: “an alarming pattern of serious and significant patient care issues at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMCs) across the country … (including) failures, deceptions, and lack of accountability permeating VA’s healthcare system … I believe your direct involvement and leadership is required.”
And, WND reported last week that Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., reminded VA Secretary Eric Shinseki that Congress had been informed two years ago that gaming the system at the VA was so widespread, employees would look to get around regulations as soon as the rules were implemented.
I know, you’re chuckling because what happened at the VA didn’t happen to you, so who cares, right?
The VA system is what the rest of our healthcare system is going to look like in a very short time. Obamacare will turn the private healthcare system into the VA, complete with all the fraud, corruption, and death seen at the VA now. Don’t think so? Bureaucrats running medicine, giving themselves bonuses while people die waiting for healthcare.
In the Medicaid system, this is already happening. Just like the VA, people can’t see specialists, can’t get treatment for cancer and many other diseases, and are dying just like VA patients. And Obama can’t fill up the Medicaid rolls fast enough. 16 million more people are getting Medicaid. You better hope you aren’t one of them.
And if you think you’ll escape because you have private health insurance, think again. Obamacare is gutting hospitals and doctors. Your insurance won’t do much good if you can’t use it, and enjoy paying double or triple digit increases in your premiums AND higher taxes so Obama can bail out health insurance companies. The VA is what’s going to happen to everyone. Hope you’re healthy and ready for it.
Stuck…I wrote a song back in college called ” War” the chorus was ” Why do the old men send all the young men off to fight their wars, to stop the oppression,to halt the aggression, do they know what they’re fighting for” ?
Of course as an old fart now I know why they send off the young men….for profit.
AWD
Obama was focused on the VA for one reason and one reason only. The VA runs a totally SOCIALIZED medical care system. Nothing private, all government. He wanted it to become the crown jewel of medical care in the U.S. as in, “See, medical care run by the federal government works, and it works well.”
Hasn’t worked out that way. Smart politicians running for office at both the state and federal levels should take this scandal and jam it up Obama’s ass in addition to any opponent who has supported Obamacare. Maybe, just maybe, THIS scandal will gain traction from the media and come back to haunt some of these entrenched liberals this fall.
Marshall Guyer, Wyandotte HS 1960. He was a nice guy and did what he was told was right. Then he was killed in Viet Nam. It makes me sad.