VA Chief compares going to VA to going to Disneyland...

Clueless...

Via Fox:

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.
“When you got to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? Or what’s important? What’s important is, what’s your satisfaction with the experience?” McDonald said Monday during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters. “And what I would like to move to, eventually, is that kind of measure.”
McDonald’s comments angered House Speaker Paul Ryan, who tweeted out Monday afternoon, “This is not make-believe, Mr. Secretary. Veterans have died waiting in those lines.”
Keep reading…

Shameful: Obama threatens to veto bill that holds VA employees accountable for their jobs...

God forbid we ever have any accountability in Washington...

Via Free Beacon:

President Obama threatened to veto the Veterans Affairs Accountability Act in a statement on Wednesday.
The President called the bill “counterproductive” and said it would create “a disparity in the treatment of one group of career civil servants.” President Obama’s statement also said the bill would “have a significant impact on VA’s ability to retain and recruit qualified professionals and may result in a loss of qualified and capable staff to other government agencies or the private sector.”
“These provisions remove important rights, protections, and incentives which are available to the vast majority of federal employees in other agencies across the government and are essential to ensure that federal employees are afforded due process,” the statement said.
Keep on reading…

Report: VA waiting list 50 percent higher now than it was a year ago

This is a complete fail by the Obama administration. Their incompetence seems to grow ever year. 

Via Fox News:

The number of veterans seeking health care but ending up on waiting lists of one month or more is 50 percent higher now than it was a year ago when a scandal over false records and long wait times wracked the Department of Veterans Affairs, The New York Times reported.
The VA also faces a budget shortfall of nearly $3 billion, the Times reported in a story posted online ahead of its Sunday editions. The agency is considering furloughs, hiring freezes and other significant moves to reduce the gap, the newspaper reported.
In the last year, the VA has increased capacity by more than 7 million patient visits per year, double what officials originally thought they needed to fix shortcomings, the Times reported. However, the newspaper added, department officials did not anticipate just how much physician workloads and demand from veterans would continue to soar. At some major veterans hospitals, demand was up by one-fifth, the paper reported.
Keep on reading…

Stolen Valor: Head of VA falsely tells Veteran he served in special forces...

Is everyone in the Obama administration a compulsive liar?

Via The Hill:

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald falsely claimed that he served in a military special forces unit, he admitted to the Huffington Post.
When a homeless veteran told McDonald in a conversation captured by CBS that he had served in special forces, the head of the VA replied that he had, too. The conversation aired during a CBS News story chronicling how the agency is working to house homeless veterans.
“I have no excuse,” McDonald told The Huffington Post. “I was not in special forces.”
He added that he “reacted spontaneously” and “wrongly [with] no intent in any way to describe my record as any different than it is.”

Shocker: Obama only met with Shinseki once during VA scandal...

The headline says it is shocking, but it really isn't. The only people Obama hates more than our military and veterans are the Tea Party and conservatives.

Via FOX

President Obama touted the newly passed Veterans Affairs reform bill Thursday as he signed the measure into law and lamented the scandal that triggered it. But a review of records by Fox News shows the president – despite the urgency he placed publicly on the crisis – only met one-on-one with then-VA Secretary Eric Shinseki once during the scandal. The records, provided through a Freedom of Information Act request, showed they met on May 30, the day Shinseki resigned. VA records show Shinseki also attended Cabinet meetings on Jan. 14 and Jan. 22. The revelation comes as lawmakers, on the heels of passing the bill that Obama signed Thursday, press the president to commit his administration to fixing the department.

Call me cynical, but the timing of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's release is suspicious...

Obama needed to change the topic from the VA scandal and he did.

Via The Hill:

The Taliban’s release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl dominated the Sunday talk shows, pushing Friday’s resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki from the headlines.

The Sunday shows were packed with Republicans launching into political attacks against President Obama and the administration for transferring five Taliban members from Guantanamo Bay to Qatar in exchange for the release of Bergdahl, the 28-year-old whom the Taliban released on Saturday, and administration officials defending the decision.

“Disturbing,” was how Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) put it on ABC’s “This Week.”

“Dangerous,” echoed House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) on CNN’s “State of The Union.”

Phoenix Veterans Affairs facility average wait for doctor: 115 days

This is government run healthcare in action.

Via The Washington Times:

A preliminary report released Wednesday found “serious conditions” at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs facility, including hundreds of veterans who were never placed on an official wait list and faulty scheduling practices that meant some veterans would never see a doctor.“We identified an additional 1,700 veterans who were waiting for a primary care appointment but were not on the [electronic wait list,]” the report from the VA inspector general said. “Most importantly, these veterans were and continue to be at risk of being forgotten or lost in Phoenix [healthcare system’s] convoluted scheduling process. As a result, these veterans may never obtain a requested or required clinical appointment.”...The report also found real wait times different drastically from what was reported by the Phoenix facility. Of 226 veterans, the data from Phoenix showed the average wait time to be just 24 days for their first primary care appointment. The inspector general, however, found the average wait time was 115 days.

Pelosi Debates Defining Veterans Dying On Secret VA Waiting Lists As A Scandal

Someone sell Nancy a vowel...

ABC, NBC and CBS spent more time on Bridgegate than VA scandal...

Because a closed bridge in New jersey is so much more important in their minds than vets dying because they can't get medical care...

Via NewsBusters:

In nearly four and a half weeks, the ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news shows have offered 110 minutes to an evolving Obama administration scandal involving secret lists designed to keep veterans from receiving proper medical treatment. Back in January, it took those same network shows just four and a half days to churn that much coverage for Chris Christie's Bridgegate. Since the VA story broke on April 23 with the news that as many as 40 veterans seeking treatment at one Phoenix facility died while on secret waiting lists, CBS has provided the most coverage, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. NBC allowed 44 minutes and 53 seconds and ABC came in last with a scant 16 minutes and 44 seconds. None of the networks bothered covering the story until May 6, almost two weeks after it broke. (This is despite heavy investigative reporting by Fox News and CNN.)

Video: Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders excuses VA Scandal: “People Die Every Day”

Carrying Obama's water...

Tweet of the Day: Cartoon blasts Obama admin's VA

pic.twitter.com/n9Bg2W0veK
— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) May 21, 2014

Flashback to 2011: NYT's Paul Krugman touts the VA as socialized medicine that works...

Krugman was wrong as usual...

Via NY Times:

Many people still have an image of veterans’ health care based on the terrible state of the system two decades ago. Under the Clinton administration, however, the V.H.A. was overhauled, and achieved a remarkable combination of rising quality and successful cost control. Multiple surveys have found the V.H.A. providing better care than most Americans receive, even as the agency has held cost increases well below those facing Medicare and private insurers. Furthermore, the V.H.A. has led the way in cost-saving innovation, especially the use of electronic medical records.
What’s behind this success? Crucially, the V.H.A. is an integrated system, which provides health care as well as paying for it. So it’s free from the perverse incentives created when doctors and hospitals profit from expensive tests and procedures, whether or not those procedures actually make medical sense. And because V.H.A. patients are in it for the long term, the agency has a stronger incentive to invest in prevention than private insurers, many of whose customers move on after a few years.
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.

Video: Bill Press On MSNBC Claims VA Scandal Is a GOP “Conspiracy”…

Bill Press: Stupid or a liar?

Obama reacts to VA scandal by A) Sending in the FBI, B) Forming a Cabinet level team, C) Dispatching one aide.

If you chose C, you are correct. Look for Obama to actually verbally acknowledge the crisis sometime in the next couple of weeks hours.

Via WaPo:

One of President Obama’s top aides is being dispatched to Phoenix this week to investigate deaths allegedly connected to a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center there, part of the administration’s efforts to contain growing outrage over delays in treatment and accusations of rigged recordkeeping at veterans hospitals.

Rob Nabors, a White House deputy chief of staff, has been assigned to assist top VA officials in probing allegations of wrong­doing by staffers at the Phoenix facility and elsewhere, the White House said Tuesday. He will be meeting with Arizona hospital officials Thursday after gathering Wednesday with representatives from several veterans groups in Washington, officials said.

Obama learns everything by way of news reports... (VA scandal)

Since Obama mainly watches the mainstream media, this explains why he is so ignorant. 

White House: Obama Learned About The VA Scandal From News Reports

Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement - Veterans Left To Die By The VA - VA Full Blown Scandal

Judge Jeanine Pirro rocks!

War on Christmas: VA refuses to allow kids to send vets Merry Christmas cards...

If someone had told you 40 years ago this would happen, you wouldn't have believed it. 

They thought it was a kind holiday gesture, but dozens of Prosper students didn't get to deliver the Christmas cards they made for local veterans because of a VA policy against specific religious cards and phrasing.[...]
Gracie and her brother, Luke, put a lot of thought and effort into their Christmas cards.
"It includes ‘Merry Christmas,' and when you open it up, it says 'Thank you for your service' and the American flag," said Luke.
Fifty-two students at Grace Academy in Prosper spent Friday making the cards they planned to hand deliver to bedridden veterans at the VA hospital in Dallas Monday morning.
When Gracie and Luke's mom, Andrea, found out they wouldn't be able to, she was outraged.
"This wasn't the country I grew up in, when you couldn't say ‘Merry Christmas,' you couldn't say ‘God bless you' or reference any scripture," she said.
The cards were the idea of Susan Chapman, a math teacher at Grace Academy. She's married to a veteran and volunteers with the American Legion and other veterans' organizations.
"It really didn't occur to me there would be a problem with distributing Christmas cards," said Chapman.
She didn't find out about the VA's holiday card policy until she called Monday morning to arrange details for the cards' delivery.
"I told him my students made cards, we'd like to bring them down for the veterans," said Chapman. "And he said, 'That's great. We're thrilled to have them, except the only thing is, we can't accept anything that says ‘Merry Christmas' or ‘God bless you' or any scriptural references because of all the red tape.'"

Obama's VA covering up poor treatment

This is a shocking story I found on Politico.com.

VA seizes reporter's tape

This is a pretty remarkable story:

Last Tuesday night, [public radio reporter David Schultz] was covering a public event at the VA Hospital in Washington, D.C. While interviewing one of the veterans about the poor treatment he was receiving at the hands of the VA, [Gloria Hairston, an internal communications specialist with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs] demanded that Schultz stop recording the interview and hand over his recording equipment.

"She said I wouldn't be allowed to leave," Schultz tells WTOP.

At first he refused. But after being surrounded by armed police officers who stood between him and the exit, he looked for a compromise.

"I became worried that I was going to get arrested," Schultz says.

Schultz convinced Hairston that all she really needed to confiscate was the memory card to his recorder, rather than all of his equipment. While this was going on, many of the veterans from the meeting had come out to watch the confrontation.

One of those veterans, an amputee in a wheelchair, approached Schultz and asked him for his phone number.

"I started to give it to him and then the woman {Hairston} became irate, she said you can't give him your phone number. You have to give me all of your equipment, or I'm going to get ugly. She used the phrase 'get ugly,'" Schultz says.

Like any good reporter, Schultz stood his ground and called his boss for direction. Longtime newsman Jim Asendio is the news director for WAMU.

"I told him to give them the flash card and get out of there," Asendio says. "I didn't want this to get out of hand."

Schultz reluctantly handed over the memory card from his recorder.

A message left with the VA press office wasn't immediately returned.