Veterans Affairs Scandal

[jimmy olsen]

Do we really not have thread on this, or did I miss it somehow?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/05/veterans_affairs_scandal_why_the_treatment_of_our_veterans_is_a_genuine.html

Why the VA Scandal Is the Real Outrage

There is a cost to being perpetually outraged. We have nothing left when something genuinely terrible is exposed.
By John Dickerson

If you've ever been seriously sick or helped a family member who is, you know how dark it can get. In the hospital, you look to every doctor or nurse who throws back that curtain and punches the hand sanitizer machine as if they have the answer, but they don't. This test or that test will tell us more, you're told, or we'll know more after one more bag is hooked up and drained. If you're on a slower track, it's just a gauntlet of appointments weeks away, tests on different floors or in different buildings, illegible return visit dates scribbled on little cards, lost parking tickets you can't validate, endless pill trays (the clear one in the morning and the opaque one at night).

This is what it's like even if everything goes relatively smoothly and you get care: It's scary and helpless. Now imagine if you experienced it with the inefficiency of the worst experience you've ever had with customer service. That's what's happening in some cases at Veteran Affairs clinics and hospitals around the country: People at their most acute moments of need are being ignored and forgotten.

This is an outrage to be outraged about. But does anyone have faith that this outrage will be answered by serious action? One primary reason to despair is that we're already living at peak outrage. Fake umbrage taking and outrage production are our most plentiful political products, not legislation and certainly not interesting solutions to complicated issues. We are in a new political season, too—that means an extra dose of hot, high stakes outrage over the slightest thing that might move votes. How does something get recognized as beyond the pale when we live beyond the pale?
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What makes the VA scandal different is not only that it affected people at their most desperate moment of need—and continues to affect them at subpar facilities. It's also a failure of one of the most basic transactions government is supposed to perform: keeping a promise to those who were asked to protect our very form of government. The growing scandal points out more than just incompetence. When the wait times were long and those promises were being broken to veterans, administrators then lied about it. It appears this was true across the country.

If you want another injured party, it's the angels at the VA—the doctors and nurses who work long hours and call you on their cellphone after dinner to answer questions that to you seem like the only thing in the world that's important. This scandal is an offense to the people trying to keep their most basic promises, even though the system is tough, battered, and bruised.

Unlike some other debates, this one can't be delayed by a conversation over whether caring for veterans is the proper responsibility of the federal government. But the political conversation is so caught up in the wasteful cycle of outrage, that this is simply being sorted as another thing to be angry about. The politicians are to blame for that fact, but so are we. Genuine outrage—sustained outrage—is required to move politicians. Every time we let politicians claim we're facing another Watergate, or partisan pundits inflame us on Facebook, or Twitter trolls play on our emotions, we spoil our ability to respond to the outrages that really matter.

Obviously given the level of incompetence at the Department of Veteran Affairs and the real costs of this scandal, we should demand more action from the president and the men and women who lead this department. Maybe Congress can move as quickly and in as bipartisan a fashion as they did when it seemed that sequestration might cause long airline delays.

The pressure can't be short-lived. Unlike the phony outrages that get addressed and forgotten, improving service at the VA is going to take time. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the VA was a more difficult bureaucracy than the Pentagon.

We can also do something immediately to show our respect for the people being abused or neglected. The VA scandal should temper the faux outrage we project on lesser matters. As FDR said, the public cannot "be attuned for long periods of time to a constant repetition of the highest note on the scale." If we are constantly yelling outrage, it leaves us with nothing when the real thing comes along.

In this time of political purity tests, let's require a purity test for the constant state of alarm. The next time someone turns their meter up to 11—whether it's a politician, a pundit, or your aunt on Facebook—their outrage should be measured against what has already happened at the VA.

[grumbler]

  Slate... outrage... wake me when real journalists want to call this the most outrageous of outrages.

[KRonn]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/21/politics/va-waiting-lists/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Obama to discuss VA controversy with Shinseki

(CNN) -- President Barack Obama is set to meet Wednesday with Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki and Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors to discuss the controversy over cooked books that covered up deadly delays for veterans to receive care, the White House said.
CNN first reported that in Phoenix, the department reported fraudulent records -- including secret lists -- that covered up deadly waiting periods for veterans. White House spokesman Jay Carney stepped around questions Tuesday about when Obama learned of the depth of the Department of Veterans Affairs problems.
Nabors, who is aiding Shinseki with a review of the allegations, will head to Phoenix on Wednesday night to interview the VA office's interim director and visit the facility.
Meanwhile, the number of VA facilities under investigation has expanded to 26, the agency's Office of Inspector General said Tuesday. Last week, the inspector general told a Senate committee that 10 facilities were being investigated.
For six months, CNN has been reporting on delays in medical appointments for veterans across the country, with some dying or suffering harm while waiting for appointments and care. The most disturbing and striking problems emerged in Arizona last month, with sources revealing to CNN details of a secret waiting list. According to the sources, at least 40 American veterans died in Phoenix while waiting for care at the VA there.
An internal VA memo from 2010, first disclosed at a congressional hearing last week, showed officials warned of "inappropriate scheduling practices" to cover up excessive waits for veterans four years ago.
The memo by William Schoenhard, who was a VA deputy undersecretary, referred to a growing practice of "gaming strategies" that he said would not be tolerated. However, a CNN investigation shows such practices have continued. 

In response to CNN's reporting, the VA has acknowledged 23 deaths across the country due to excessive waits by veterans for care, and the VA inspector general launched an independent investigation of the Phoenix allegations and other VA problems in addition to the internal review by Shinseki and Nabors.
At a Senate hearing last week, the inspector general said his investigation so far found a possible 17 deaths of veterans waiting for care in Phoenix but added there was no evidence that the excessive waiting caused the deaths.

On Monday, Carney acknowledged the White House learned of the situation at the Phoenix VA from CNN reports in April.

Asked Tuesday about the Schoenhard memo, Carney refused to answer and instead referred reporters to the VA because it was an internal VA document.
At the same time, Carney said Obama had long been aware of problems at the VA and sought to address them since taking office, adding, "This is not a new issue to the President."
In 2007, Obama, then a senator from Illinois, vowed to tackle the issue of insufficient care for veterans at a campaign event during his first run for the presidency.
"When a veteran is denied care, we are all dishonored," Obama said in the August 2007 speech, adding: "It's not enough to lay a wreath on Memorial Day, or to pay tribute to our veterans in speeches."

So far, the President has resisted calls by Republicans to fire Shinseki.
Whistleblowers from other VA hospitals across the country have stepped forward to describe similar schemes by officials to hide the extended waits.
Florida problems

Meanwhile, an audit team sent to the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center in Gainesville, Florida, discovered a list of patients needing follow-up appointments that was kept on paper instead of in the VA's electronic computer system.
As a result, three members of the Gainesville VA's supervisory staff have been placed on paid leave, pending the outcome of the inspector general's investigation, VA Sunshine Healthcare Network spokeswoman Mary Kay Hollingsworth said this week.

The secret waiting list in Phoenix was part of an elaborate scheme designed by VA managers there who were trying to hide that 1,400 to 1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor, according to a recently retired top VA doctor and several high-level sources who spoke exclusively to CNN.
Phoenix VA officials denied any knowledge of a secret list, and said they never ordered any staff to hide waiting times. They acknowledged some veterans may have died waiting for care there, but they said they did not have knowledge about why those veterans might have died.

CNN has tried repeatedly to interview Shinseki, but the requests have been denied.

Obama has not publicly addressed the controversy in nearly three weeks since first commenting on the matter during a trip to Asia. 

[Fate]

Physician salaries in the VA system are highly uncompetitive relative to market rates (40-50% less.) Of course there are going to be staffing shortages and long wait lines.

[The Brain]

IMHO vets should live like kings.

[Viking]

Government service fails to perform to desired standards. Film at 23.

[alfred russel]

I'm sort of confused by the scandal. I've always had the impression that the VA is really shitty and basically a last resort for veterans that don't have any other access to medical care.

[Valmy]

I'm sort of confused by the scandal. I've always had the impression that the VA is really shitty and basically a last resort for veterans that don't have any other access to medical care.

The extent of the shittyness is pretty disgraceful.  Even the DoD can do better.

[Phillip V]

Support Our Troops

[citizen k]

Support Our Troops

That's the government's job.

[grumbler]

I'm sort of confused by the scandal. I've always had the impression that the VA is really shitty and basically a last resort for veterans that don't have any other access to medical care.

My late brother used the VA a lot and didn't have any real complaints, other than waiting time (which applies to all government-provided health care).  It is true that it is a provider of last resort, given that you have a means test before you can even access it.

[grumbler]

The extent of the shittyness is pretty disgraceful.  Even the DoD can do better.

VA was split off from DoD long ago.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I blame Obama.

[Siege]

Comunism does not work.

[Siege]

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