The ongoing, and apparently escalating,
scandal within the Department of Veterans Affairs has definitely stirred up a
lot of interest within the veteran’s community, and in the national political
arena as well. Since the reports of
ongoing improprieties hit the headlines (remember that I’m a Vietnam veteran,
partially disabled, who is pretty well dependent on the VA for my ongoing
medical care), I have been following the issue with considerable interest. Let me state for the record that I, like the
majority of veterans (reportedly 82%), am pretty well satisfied with the
quality of VA medical care, although I can’t say the same about the assorted bureaucratic hoops I have to jump through on a regular basis.
The problem arose when it was
reported that the Phoenix VA hospital was cooking the books when reporting the
delay time between patients requesting an appointment and actually seeing a
Doctor. Where the VA reported a 21-day
average (only slightly more than the national average of 18.5 days), Phoenix
often had numerous unreported delays well in excess of 100 days, and in some cases deaths as a result of those delays. There is some reason to believe the present
scheduling problem may not be as severe nationwide as is generally
believed, with the worst delays, according
to the VA, occurring in the Northwest, the South, and the Southwest, to some
extent driven by a shortage in medical staffing. The VA presently reports that they have
1,900 medical staff positions unfilled, including several in Phoenix. A VA internal report also found
"numerous allegations" of "daily of mismanagement, inappropriate
hiring decisions, sexual harassment, and bullying behavior by mid- and
senior-level managers." The
Phoenix bureaucracy however, in an effort to make themselves look good, and
improve their chances for employee bonuses and raises (VA bonuses can exceed
$30,000), misreported the problem and left themselves wide open for the ongoing
scandal. The VA Inspector General
called for a nationwide review to determine whether similar problems were
occurring at other locations, with 42 VA medical centers across the country now
under investigation for possible abuse of scheduling practices.
In 1921 the US Congress created
the Veterans Bureau to administer assistance to World War I veterans. It
quickly turned into a hotbed of corruption, and was abolished nine years later,
to be replaced in 1930 by the Veterans Administration. Scandals have seemed to follow the VA around
ever since. In this case, when the news
hit the streets, Mr. Obama promptly informed us that he was “mad as hell”,
which, with his similar comments about all the other government scandals of
late, I can only conclude that he’s simply “Mad”!
The VA problems are however many
faceted. Like most government jobs,
it’s a Civil Service position, which is an open invitation to kick-back and
relax, take extended coffee breaks, and collect a nice fat paycheck and
assorted bonuses at taxpayer expense. There used to be a saying that Civil Service and NASA’s rockets
had a couple of things in common, in that neither could be made to work, and
neither could be fired! NASA seems to
have improved their position however.
The raging
congressional demands for the head of VA Sec. Eric Shinseki should be no
surprise to anyone. It’s an election
year after all, and both political parties, smelling blood, need someone to
point their fingers at and mask their own failures. Sen. John
McCain of Arizona, Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota,
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Deputy National Security Adviser Tony
Blinken, have all called for Shinseki’s resignation, with our usual media
sensationalism providing with a cheering section.
Congress claims to be “cutting the wastage and deadwood”
while playing to the crowd by slashing the budgets of the military, the VA,
NASA, and assorted other departments.
They happily ignore the rather dismal shape our national infrastructure
is in, our illegal immigrant problem, leaky borders, and bankrupt cities. They ignore mental health care, failing
education, and our own poor and homeless, all the while sending billions of
dollars to third world petty dictators in the name of “humanitarian aid” that
winds up in Swiss banks. It’s
Congress that has under-funded the VA for decades, while not least it was
Congress that dramatically increased the services the VA must provide and the
patients it must treat, without an increase in either funding or caregivers. And it is Congress that ignores the fact that thanks to the
miracles of modern medicine we are today able to save the lives of wounded
troops who would have died on the battlefield in past wars, wounded warriors
that now require extensive medical care.
Instead of providing oversight as they’re supposed to do,
members of Congress often skipped the hearings that they scheduled or requested
on veterans’ affairs. In one particularly shameful episode, a ranking
member of the Veterans Affairs Committee who never served in uniform, who
missed his own committee hearings and never heard the testimony in question,
attacked the Veterans of Foreign Wars because the organization supported
Shinseki. If Sen. Richard Burr of North
Carolina expected the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, and
the Paralyzed Veterans of America to apologize for not carrying out his
political wishes, he made a serious tactical error, as I hope the upcoming
election will demonstrate. The political trap door was sprung, and down went a man
who was two-thousand miles away from the crime scene. Mr. Obama smiled as
he made a good man disappear, all the while blaming someone else.
The only participant who emerged
with dignity from it all was the victim, Eric Shinseki. A retired general and wounded vet himself
(he lost half of his foot
to a land mine in Vietnam), General Shinseki served in the Army for
thirty-eight years, rising to Army Chief-of-Staff. Apparently it spoiled him for work in civilian Washington D.C.
In the Army, an officer might try to put a good face on unpleasant facts,
but at least he’ll tell you the truth. Shinseki made the mistake of trusting
civilian careerists chasing bonuses the way he’d trusted subordinates in the
Army. Still, Gen. Shinseki made real
progress during his tenure. The backlog of claims was reduced by nearly half
and patient care was greatly expanded.
But Shinseki could not fix an entrenched spoils system and a
half-century’s damage in a mere five years.
Now, a man who has dedicated his entire adult life to serving our
country, leaves office under a dark cloud whipped up by politicians, from Mr.
Obama, to worried Democrats running for Congress who’ve suddenly discovered
disabled veterans, to equally cynical Republicans exploiting veterans for a
campaign advantage. To me, our Congress
critters make the Kardashians look like paragons of virtue!
The mob won. Our country, and our
veterans, lost once again. And Eric
Shinseki, an American hero, was sacrificed on the alter of political expediency.
