The VA: Single Payer Nightmare
Veterans with serious heart conditions, gangrene, and even brain tumors waited months for care at the Albuquerque VA hospital, a whistleblowing doctor tells The Daily Beast.
“In the now-infamous VA scandal of 2012-2015, the nation was appalled to learn that 1,000 veterans died while waiting to see a doctor,” wrote Adam Andrzejewski, the founder and CEO of Open the Books, in an editorial for Forbes.
“Tragically, many calls to the suicide assistance hotline were answered by voicemail. The health claim appeals process was known as ‘the hamster wheel’ and the appointment books were cooked in seven of every ten clinics.”
“Yet, in the midst of these horrific failings the VA managed to spend $20 million on high-end art over the last ten years—with $16 million spent during the Obama years,” Andrzejewski said. 
There is only one guaranteed way to get fired from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Falsifying records won’t do it. Prescribing obsolete drugs won’t do it. Cutting all manner of corners on health and safety is, at worst, going to get you a reprimand. No, the only sure-fire way to get canned at the VA is to report any of these matters to authorities who might do something about it. -Jonah Goldberg
Three years before Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki would be forced out of his job because of the veterans who had died under him, he visited the Massachusetts National Cemetery. He wasn’t there to see the men and women who had died because of him. While vets were dying, Obama and Shinseki had turned their attention to something truly important; seeing to it that all the cemeteries where they were being buried had wind or solar power. -Daniel Greenfield
The VA: "Exhibit A for the advantages of government provision of healthcare."
"...some of the best-quality healthcare in America at far lower cost than the private sector."
The dead rats falling from the kitchen ceiling of one of the nation's busiest veterans hospitals show the facility's pest control efforts are working...
“Exhibit A for the advantages of government provision [of healthcare] is the veterans administration, which runs its own hospitals and clinics, and provides some of the best-quality healthcare in America at far lower cost than the private sector." -Paul Krugman, Former Enron Advisor
Healthcare That Works
And the government has a particularly good record in medical care. Take the hospital system run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the largest integrated health system in the United States. It is fully government run, much more “socialized medicine” than is Canadian health care with its private doctors and hospitals. And the system for veterans is by all accounts one of the best-performing and most cost-effective elements in the American medical establishment. -Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times
Image: New York Times
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
(CNN) -- A Missouri VA hospital is under fire because it may have exposed more than 1,800 veterans to life-threatening diseases such as hepatitis and HIV.
Phil, it looks like everything YOU think you know is wrong.
The Benchmark for Quality
"The story of how and why the VHA became the benchmark for quality medicine in the United States suggests that much of what we think we know about health care and medical economics is just wrong. -Phillip Longman, editorial "The Best Care Anywhere"
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Healthcare
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) blocked the release of the names of hospitals where 19 veterans died because of delays in medical screenings, leading to calls for transparency from news outlets and a bipartisan group of Capitol Hill lawmakers.
Hey everyone quiet down - he's going to speak...
Proven Superior to Private Sector
"Socialized medicine has been tried in the United States, and it has proven superior to health care supplied by the private sector... The socialized medicine to which I refer is the complex of hospitals managed by the Veterans Administration." -Timothy Noah
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
With Veterans Affairs hospitals giving botched radiation treatments to nearly 100 vets and exposing 10,000 to HIV and hepatitis viruses, veterans advocates and lawmakers say the VA health system is in dire need of proper oversight and funding.
From Enron to Socialized Medicine. Paul Krugman really knows his stuff.
One Of The Best Kept Secrets...
"For the government doesn't just pay the bills in this system--it runs the hospitals and clinics. No, I'm not talking about some faraway country. The system in question is our very own Veterans Health Administration, whose success story is one of the best-kept secrets in the American policy debate. -Paul Krugman
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
With the war in Iraq over and the one in Afghanistan winding down, the VA is sorting through a backlog of more than 860,000 disability claims from American veterans. More than a quarter of those vets -- 228,000 -- have been waiting for a year or more. Rioux has been trying to get his disability claim fully processed since January 2011, shortly after he returned from Afghanistan. The litany of delays includes lost paperwork, long wait times for appointments and erroneous lab results. At one point, a doctor prescribed him medication for a bladder infection he didn't have; he'd never given as much as a urine sample.
Hey Ezra, There's A Reason Why It's Cheap - See Waiting Lists...
The Cheapest Way To Run Effective Health Care
"The VA is an excellent example – probably the best in America – of a very cost effective medical system delivering first rate care. There is pretty good evidence, both from the VA and from overseas, that nationalized health systems are the cheapest way to run effective health care." -Ezra Klein
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Socialism, Healthcare, Justice
VA employees at an outpatient clinic in Fort Collins, Colo., falsified appointment records to hide the fact that as many as 6,300 veterans treated at the outpatient clinic waited months to be seen for treatment. ... And in Pittsburgh, VA officials are accused of covering up the death of several patients after the water in a VA hospital became infected with bacteria.
Hope and Change Circa 2008...
My Plan For Universal Health Care
"We’ll build a 21st century VA and fully fund the VA medical center. The VA will also be at the cutting edge of my plan for universal health care..." -Barack Obama, March 2008
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Socialism, Healthcare, Justice
The Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General's Office said late Tuesday that 26 facilities were being investigated nationwide over allegations of manipulated waiting times and other issues.
Liberalism has become a model for what a dying movement should look like.
Model For Modern Health Care Management
"As Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government gushed when awarding the VA a top prize in 2006 for innovation in government: "While the costs of health care continue to soar for most Americans, the VA is reducing costs, reducing errors, and becoming the model for what modern health care management and delivery should look like." -Phillip Longman
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Socialism, Healthcare, Justice
A second VA in Fort Collins, CO also falsified their lists, according to findings by the VA’s Office of Medical Inspector. But there, where as many as 6,300 veterans waited months to be seen, if clerical staff allowed records to reveal veterans waited longer than 14 days for an appointment, they were placed on a “bad boy list” as punishment.
Yep. And the Constitution was written more than a hundred years ago....
"The VA Is Actually Socialized Medicine"
"VA is actually socialized medicine, where the government owns the hospitals and employs the doctors." -Ezra Klein...
"If you ordered America's different health systems worst-functioning to best, it would look like this: individual insurance market, employer-based insurance market, Medicare, Veterans Health Administration." -Ezra Klein
“If other health care providers followed the V.A.’s lead, it would be a major step toward improving the quality of care across the U.S. health care system,” Rand reported.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Fraud, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption
Delaying medical care to veterans and manipulating records to hide those delays is "systemic throughout" the Department of Veterans Affairs health system, the VA's Office of Inspector General said in a preliminary report Wednesday... Some 1,138 veterans in Phoenix had been waiting longer than six months just to get an appointment to see their primary doctors, investigators found.
The farther you head is up your butt, the better you sound, Paul...
The Most Efficient Healthcare
"The most efficient health care systems are integrated systems like the V.H.A.; next best are single-payer systems like Medicare; the more privatized the system, the worse it performs." -Paul Krugman
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Fraud, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption
Emails and VA memos obtained exclusively by The Daily Beast provide what is among the most comprehensive accounts yet of how high-level VA hospital employees conspired to game the system. It shows not only how they manipulated hospital wait lists but why—to cover up the weeks and months veterans spent waiting for needed medical care. If those lag times had been revealed, it would have threatened the executives’ bonus pay. ... “For lack of a better term, you’ve got an organized crime syndicate,” a whistleblower who works in the Texas VA told The Daily Beast. “People up on top are suddenly afraid they may actually be prosecuted and they’re pressuring the little guys down below to cover it all up.” -Jacob Siegel, Daily Beast
Art, you're delivering consistently high-quality BS...
"Consistently High-Quality Care"
"Ironically, Reinhardt notes, the U.S. already has a close cousin to the NHS within our borders. It's the national network of VA Hospitals, clinics and skilled nursing facilities operated by our Veterans Healthcare Administration, part of the Department of Veterans Affairs. By almost every measure, the VA is recognized as delivering consistently high-quality care to its patients." -Arthur L. Kellermann
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
More than 1.5 million medical orders were canceled by the Department of Veterans Affairs without any guarantee the patients received the treatment or tests they needed, the Washington Examiner has found... What happened to other 1.5 million appointments is something that no one, including top officials at the veterans’ agency, can answer.
From Enron to Socialized Medicine. Paul Krugman really knows his stuff.
The VA: "Huge Policy Success Story"
"What Mr. Romney and everyone else should know is that the V.H.A. is a huge policy success story, which offers important lessons for future health reform... And yes, this is “socialized medicine” — although some private systems, like Kaiser Permanente, share many of the V.H.A.’s virtues. But it works — and suggests what it will take to solve the troubles of U.S. health care more broadly." -Paul Krugman
Government, Incompetence, Fraud, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption
Early in April, the House Veterans Affairs Committee heard the sad testimony of 44-year-old Barry Coates, an Army veteran who sought treatment for severe abdominal pain and rectal bleeding in November 2010 at a VA hospital in Hartsville, S.C... Coates got the worst possible news from the delayed test. “It is likely too late for me,” Coates told the House panel. “The gross negligence of my ongoing problems and crippling backlog epidemic of the VA medical system has not only handed me a death sentence, but ruined the quality of life I have for the meantime.”
Hey Phil - I'm just jumpin' up and sayin'...
Govt Care: Yes, This Is What Happens
"If the debate is over health-care reform, it won't be long before some free-market conservative will jump up and say that the sorry shape of the nation's veterans hospitals just proves what happens when government gets into the health-care business." -Phillip Longman
Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
In particular, the report observes that “OR staff we interviewed indicated that flying and crawling insects have been an ongoing problem in the OR for about 8 years” and that some staff believe the source of the insect problem is that EMS staff are eating food in the OR at night. “The facility does not have a policy addressing prevention or management of insect problems,” states the IG.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Nearly 900,000 military veterans have officially pending applications for health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the department's inspector general said Wednesday, but "serious" problems with enrollment data make it impossible to determine how many veterans were actively seeking VA health care...
The report also says VA workers incorrectly marked thousands of unprocessed health-care applications as completed and may have deleted 10,000 or more electronic "transactions" over the past five years.
Crime, Government, Incompetence, Fraud, Socialism, Healthcare
Supervisors instructed employees to falsify patient wait times at Veterans Affairs' medical facilities in at least seven states, according to a USA TODAY analysis of more than 70 investigation reports released in recent weeks... Employees at 40 VA medical facilities in 19 states and Puerto Rico regularly “zeroed out” veteran wait times, the analysis shows. In some cases, investigators found manipulation had been going on for as long as a decade... More than 480,000 veterans were waiting more than 30 days for an appointment as of March 15, public VA data show.
Liberal, Hate, Character, Smears
Tweet: The Repubs should stop with their fake outrage over the "V.A. scandal." The only scandal they need to address is why they started those wars
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Socialism, Healthcare
Last month, CNN revealed that at least 40 veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system, according to sources inside the hospital and a doctor who worked there. Many were placed on a secret waiting list, the sources said. Since November, CNN has uncovered delays in care at VA facilities across the country where numerous VA staffers have stepped forward to allege dangerously long wait times and efforts by agency officials to cover them up.
Obama: Told Years Ago
And He's Mad As Hell Now.
What is most surprising about the present controversy surrounding the substandard treatment at the VA, in which at least 40 veterans lost their lives while awaiting treatment, is that House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller (R-FL) had alerted the president to trouble nearly a year ago.
President Obama said last week that he only recently learned of scandals at the Department of Veteran Affairs through news reports. He spoke of the problems at the department as if they had blindsided him, despite the fact that as a candidate in 2008 he railed against the “the broken bureaucracy of the V.A.” and decried outrageous delays in treatment for veterans. -George Neumayr
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
The Obama administration received clear 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 — problems that have turned into a growing scandal.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Fraud, Oops, Socialism, Lie, Healthcare, Corruption
The Obama administration knew about allegations of secret waiting lists at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as early as 2010, The Daily Caller has learned... Former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that President Obama only found about the VA wait-list scandal from watching the news.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Socialism, Healthcare
“What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said. When then asked by panelist Steve Sebelius whether he meant ultimately the country would have to have a health care system that abandoned insurance as the means of accessing it, Reid said: “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Narrative, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
The Department of Veterans Affairs says it will let more veterans obtain health care at private hospitals, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki announced Saturday. Shinseki, who faces calls to resign amid reports of lengthy waiting lists and preventable deaths in the VA’s healthcare system, said the agency is "increasing the care we acquire in the community through non-VA care," according to the Associated Press.
Whistleblowers within the Veterans’ Administration health system are coming forward with tales of brutal disregard for the health and life of those who served our country. Allegations of extensive wait times for lifesaving care, deaths while waiting, and horrific mismanagement have triggered outrage. Unfortunately, the VA abuses are just the tip of a much larger, more menacing iceberg. The iceberg is covert health care rationing, and it’s inherent in single-payer systems like the VA. -Elizabeth Price Foley
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
In my experience, the best thing that a patient in the VA system could hope for was that the services he needed were unavailable. When that is the case, the VA outsources their care to doctors in the community, where their problems are promptly addressed. But these patients still need to return to the VA system for other services and get back on a long waiting list. -Hal Scherz
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
The White House on Monday came under increased pressure to launch a criminal probe of the Veterans Affairs Department after an audit found more than 100,000 veterans were kept waiting for medical care... The audit found more than 57,000 veterans waited at least 90 days to see a doctor, and an additional 63,000 people over the past decade never received an initial appointment at all.
Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
In particular, the report observes that “OR staff we interviewed indicated that flying and crawling insects have been an ongoing problem in the OR for about 8 years” and that some staff believe the source of the insect problem is that EMS staff are eating food in the OR at night. “The facility does not have a policy addressing prevention or management of insect problems,” states the IG.
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Fraud, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption
All of the 470 senior executives at the Department of Veterans Affairs received annual ratings over the last four years indicating that they were “fully successful” in their jobs or even better, according to data released at a congressional hearing on Friday... The data also showed that in 2013, nearly 80 percent of the senior executives were rated either “outstanding” or as having exceeded “fully successful” in their job performance...
Coates got the worst possible news from the delayed test. “It is likely too late for me,” Coates told the House panel. “The gross negligence of my ongoing problems and crippling backlog epidemic of the VA medical system has not only handed me a death sentence, but ruined the quality of life I have for the meantime.”
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Degeneracy, Fraud, AntiAmerican, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption
The problems at Veterans Affairs extend well beyond long wait lists, with a report Tuesday showing the department is plagued with poor care that has cost up to 1,000 veterans their lives and left taxpayers on the hook for nearly $1 billion in malpractice settlements since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Crime, Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare, Drugs
Vials of morphine were systemically stolen from a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center and replaced with water and saline so that dying veterans got the wrong treatments, a longtime VA nurse told The Daily Caller.
“A nurse taking care of hospice patients over the past year had been diverting vials of morphine,” said Valerie Riviello, a 28-year veteran nurse at the Albany Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany, New York. “Those patients that were dying in hospice were not getting their intended pain medication.”
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Fraud, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption, Ignorance
Ignored claims, manipulated records, cost overruns and even one facility infested with insects and rodents are among the latest issues uncovered by a blistering VA Inspector General’s report. The auditor's probe found that more than 31,000 inquiries placed by veterans to the Philadelphia Regional VA office call center went ignored for more than 312 days, even though they were supposed to be answered in five.
After reports in April 2014 that some vets may have died waiting for appointments with the Phoenix VA facility, the IG found that wait times for thousands had been electronically manipulated while some 1,700 vets were put on a secret list to cover up their long waits. It was later revealed that 18 of those on the secret ledger died before getting their appointments.
Government, Incompetence, Character, Fraud, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption, Jobs
The nationwide scandal last spring over manipulated wait times at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals led to the ouster of the secretary of veterans affairs and vows from the new leadership that people would be held accountable. Then in February, the new secretary, Robert A. McDonald, asserted in a nationally televised interview that the department had fired 60 people involved in manipulating wait times... Now, new internal documents show that the real number of people removed from their jobs is much smaller still: at most, three.
So the VA really is a good example of a single-payer, socialized health system. Just not in the way that fans of that approach mean. -J.D. Tuccille
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Character, Socialism, Healthcare
The dead rats falling from the kitchen ceiling of one of the nation's busiest veterans hospitals show the facility's pest control efforts are working. That is what officials at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center said Monday in the wake of a Tampa Bay Times report that revealed the hospital is battling a severe infestation of rats and cockroaches. Haley spokeswoman Karen Collins provided some detail about the hospital's "vermin control" efforts that include rat traps placed on ceiling tiles in a kitchen that prepares food for hospitalized veterans and a canteen kitchen that serves veterans, staff and visitors.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
For three years, more than $43 million the Department of Veterans Affairs had set aside to inform veterans about their benefits sat in an account, not a penny spent, until an agency financial manager happened to notice.
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Scandal, Socialism, Healthcare
More than 238,000 of the 847,000 veterans in the pending backlog for health care through the Department of Veterans Affairs have already died, according to an internal VA document provided to The Huffington Post... As of April, there were 847,822 veterans listed as pending for enrollment in VA health care. Of those, 238,657 are now deceased, meaning they died after they applied for, but never got, health care.
Government, Incompetence, Fraud, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption
Responding to an anonymous tip, the Inspector General for Veterans Affairs sent a surprise inspection to the offices of the Los Angeles VA. The results of that inspection were made public this week and they are damning (PDF). The IG’s team found benefits documents were placed in employee “to-shred” bins without being processed.
To cover their tracks the doctor said they decided, “Instead of calling it a wait it would be called something like a precedence list.” -Jacob Siegel, Daily Beast
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption, Jobs
The government's Office of Special Counsel on Thursday told President Obama and top members of Congress that the Department of Veterans Affairs has failed to discipline VA employees for their role in the health care scandal, a conclusion many members of Congress have already reached...
Her letter listed several other examples in which the VA failed to fire officials, and noted that the VA seems to have no problem taking disciplinary action against VA whistleblowers. "The VA has attempted to fire or suspend whistleblowers for minor indiscretions and, often, for activity directly related to the employee's whistleblowing," it said.
Hypocrisy, Government, Incompetence, Fraud, Greed, Waste, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption, Jobs, Constitution
Executives at the Department of Veterans Affairs invoked their Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer questions about whether they abused a program that compensates them for taking jobs in other states, during a hearing before the House Veterans Affairs Committee Monday evening... Executives at the VA netted $2 million by abusing the relocation program, the VA's inspector general found in a September report.
Crime, Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Department of Veterans Affairs officials have racked up more than 10,000 privacy breaches since 2011, making the VA the nation's most prolific violator of laws protecting patients' personal medical information...
For example, one VA employee was found to have improperly accessed a veteran's medical records 61 times without a "business related reason," a HIPAA violation report filed to the Department of Health and Human Services in March 2013 showed. The unnamed employee then posted information from the patient's file on Facebook and "discussed it with her friends," the report said...
In fact, some VA officials have used their access to medical records of employees who are also veterans and VA patients as a way to retaliate against whistleblowers.
What's more, the review found at least 15 instances in which VA employees had posted pictures of patients or details of their medical conditions on social media. That included a 2011 incident in which a patient assistant posted to Facebook a picture of "an ailing veteran's exposed buttocks."
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Tolerance
A pair of Senate Republicans are slamming the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) after a top watchdog found that some calls to its suicide crisis hotline were being sent to voicemail. "The culture of corruption and incompetence at the VA knows no boundaries. To think that we lose 22 veterans to suicide every day in this country — and our VA allows their calls to go to voicemail — is unforgivable," Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.)
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
In an exchange about hiring practices during a July 2014 deposition in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint against a dentist, a dentistry chief admitted that hiring preference is not given to veterans for well-paying jobs or management and senior roles. Apparently, veterans are intentionally bypassed for such roles because they are perceived as too empathetic to those they serve.
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Character, Brilliance, Oops, Crazy, Socialism, Healthcare, Ignorance, Arrogance
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald on Monday compared the length of time veterans wait to receive health care at the VA to the length of time people wait for rides at Disneyland, and said his agency shouldn't use wait times as a measure of success because Disney doesn't either.