Tag Archives: VA

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VA scandal far from ‘overstated’

veterans affairs

Hillary Rodham Clinton could not be more wrong than she was the other night when she said that the Department of Veterans Affairs health care scandal was “overstated.”

You’ll recall the VA matter. Veterans seeking medical care in Phoenix were made to wait for too long for the care — and then some of the died while waiting.

Meanwhile, the VA cooked the books, so to speak, and hid that information from agency watchdogs in order to protect the medical staff at the VA medical center in Phoenix.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki had to quit and the agency went under the microscope to correct the hideous situation that resulted in the veterans’ deaths.

News flash to Hillary: None of it — zero — was “overstated.”

Veterans should be offended by what the Democrats’ leading presidential contender told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow the other evening. I know I am.

Yes, Clinton is right to say that most veterans get good health care. I can attest to the quality of care I am getting in Amarillo at the Thomas Creek VA Medical Center. Then again, I enjoy good health.

My hope is that when I do need some specialized care that it will be available to me in a timely fashion. I damn sure don’t want to die waiting to receive it.

Most veterans do receive good care. The veterans who have died because of too-long wait times, though, did not.

For the Democrats’ leading presidential candidate to suggest it’s all “overstated,” overblown and overplayed is dishonest on its face.

national news, political news

Rubio steps in it with Senate speech

Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., presides over Senate Foreign Relations Committee, subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, And Global Women's Issues hearing on overview of U.S. policy towards Haiti prior to the elections, Wednesday, July 15, 2015, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

I’ve been all over the pea patch on this one, but I’ve decided to give U.S. senators seeking higher office a break … most of the time.

Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who’s running for president of the United States, has become the object of some criticism because of his lousy attendance record in the Senate. He’s been busy seeking the presidency and doesn’t have time to the job to which he was elected.

Hey, a guy can be only in one place at a time, right?

Rubio’s been absent a lot

I do not begrudge Rubio’s ambition to become commander in chief, leader of the Free World, the Man with the Veto Pen. Other senators are spending a lot of time on the road running for the White House: Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham. A couple of governors have gotten into some hot water back home for spending too much time away from the statehouse; Chris Christie and Scott Walker (before he dropped out of the race) come immediately to mind.

They all have the right to pursue the big prize.

Texas has had its share of senators aspiring to higher office. In addition to Cruz, we’ve had the likes of Lyndon Johnson and Lloyd Bentsen taking their fair share of time away from the job.

So, I’d say give Rubio a break. Leave him alone.

Except for this: Rubio took to the Senate floor to say, “All we’re saying here is if you work at the (Veterans Affairs Department) and aren’t doing your job, they get to fire you. This should actually be the rule in the entire government – if you aren’t not doing your job you should be fired.”

Ohhhh, Marco.

Dadgummit, young man. You shouldn’t have said such a thing.

 

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Medicare info overflows from my mailbox

This is another in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

My 65th birthday looms just a few months down the road.

Someone must have ratted me out to every health insurance company on the planet. Nearly every single day our mail box contains something from someone telling me about my Medicare options when I hit that magic number.

Maybe I should send them all return slips telling them “Stop sending me these mailers.”

Would they heed my command? I doubt it. Strongly.

They’ll keep coming.

Here’s the latest on my Medicare sign-up planning: I have given it hardly a thought.

Medicare was that genius legislation cooked up during the Lyndon Johnson administration. President Johnson signed the Medicare bill into law in 1965. Unlike the hassling and haggling over the Affordable Care Act, there was little overt opposition to the then-new law when the president signed it.

Yes, they tweaked the provisions within the Medicare program once they figured out how to solve the problems. They didn’t toss it all out and start over, which is what many ACA critics keep insisting must be done now. To borrow a phrase from Col. Sherman T. Potter: buffalo bagels!

Medicare is still a seemingly complicated matter. My mother-in-law is on it and my intrepid wife is forced on occasion to sort out some kind of issue with it as it relates to her mother’s health care.

You’ve got parts A, B and D. I think that’s it. Whatever happened to Part C? Maybe it’s part of the pile of mailings I’ve gotten, but have just missed it.

Someone advised me once that my Veterans Administration health care coverage — which, of course, is prepaid — would be sufficient, that I wouldn’t need to mess with Medicare.

I’ll get to poring through the Medicare mailings eventually. Maybe I’ll decide on a plan to cover me in case I get sick.

It can wait. All these mailers make my head hurt.

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Headlines keep changing rapidly

It occurs to me that our collective attention keeps getting diverted from crisis to crisis — and few of us talk openly about the crisis that passes from our view.

* Remember the Syrian civil war? We were going to bomb Syria for using chemical weapons on civilians. Then we backed off. The Russians entered the picture and helped broker a deal to get rid of the weapons.

* A Boeing 777 disappeared en route from Malaysia to China. It apparently crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Search teams from several countries are looking for the wreckage that contains 239 passengers and crew. To date, nothing’s been found.

* Then came Ukraine. The Russians entered the picture there, too. Ukraine ousted its pro-Russian president, who fled to Russia. The Russians essentially annexed Crimea, moved a lot of troops to the Ukraine border, then backed off after the Ukrainians elected a news president who is acceptable to Moscow.

* A Nigerian terrorist group — Boko Haram — kidnapped about 300 girls and is holding them captive somewhere. World opinion erupted and the demands came out for the international community to do all it can to rescue those young women.

* Americans got caught up in the Benghazi story yet again. The House of Representatives formed a select committee to examine the Benghazi attack one more time. Maybe we’ll see the end of this probe. Then again, maybe not until after the 2016 presidential election that’s likely to feature one Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was secretary of state when the U.S. consulate was attacked in September 2012.

* The Veterans Administration took the headlines away from Benghazi with reports of veterans dying while awaiting health care in Arizona. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned and a thorough review is under way to find a cure for what ails the massive federal agency.

* Taliban militants released Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and the questions about his release and the terms that brought it about have created the latest headline grabber.

These sequences keep building on themselves. Our attention is riveted on these storied and then it’s diverted from one “crisis of the moment” to the next one.

Is it any wonder why Barack Obama’s hair has gotten so gray?

Hey, what’s happening with Syria these days?

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Next VA visit will be, um, interesting

They had to schedule my next visit to the Thomas Creek Veterans Medical Center in Amarillo amid all this turmoil.

They just had to do it.

I’ll be there Tuesday morning, just as the sun is coming up. It’s a routine visit, but it comes in the midst of all this national discussion/debate/quarreling/backbiting over the care veterans have been getting.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki has quit as the scandal keeps roiling over the deaths of vets in Phoenix, Ariz. The system is a mess. Wait times are unacceptably long, so long in fact that it cost those Phoenix vets their lives … allegedly.

I’ll go in early Tuesday and will sit in a waiting room with other vets. Gosh, I wonder what they’ll be talking about. How it’s President Obama’s fault? How the system has been messed up for decades? How they’re happy with the care they’ve gotten? How they hope the Creek medical center here in Amarillo isn’t among those where patient care is being delayed beyond all reason?

You know, that last item — the status of the VA center here — has been on my mind.

I’m a fairly new VA enrollee, having just gotten into the system a year ago.

So far, I’ve been deliriously happy with the treatment I’ve gotten. It’s been prompt. My wait times for routine visits have been minimal. The staff has been respectful — and they have expressed thanks for my service to the country, inconsequential as it was.

I’ve also been blessed with excellent health. I have no serious medical issues. My visit Tuesday will be routine, or so I am presuming.

Thus, none of the issues plaguing the system apply to my own health needs.

It is my sincerest hope that it will remain that way after I leave the VA hospital.

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Some scandals you take personally

Allow me this admission.

Some political controversies are more personal than others. Some of them skip across my radar and then they’re gone; others have this way of hitting you personally.

The Veterans Administration health care scandal hits quite close to home. White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said today that President Obama is “outraged,” and “mad as hell” over allegations that veterans have died while awaiting health care. The president vows to get to the very bottom of what’s going on, McDonough said, and vows to correct all of it.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2014/05/mcdonough-obama-madder-than-hell-on-va-scandal-188734.html?hp=l1

There had better be some major fixes, even if it requires heads to roll — starting with Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, who I happen to admire greatly. If it turns out he was oblivious to what happened at those VA hospitals, then he should go.

At issue is whether a reported 40-plus vets died while waiting for health care in Phoenix, Ariz., and that their wait times were disguised by phony records.

Why do I take this matter so personally? I enrolled at the Amarillo VA medical center a year ago. My friends tell me it must be nice to get “free medical care.” I correct them: “No, it’s prepaid.” Two years in the Army purchased that health care and I expect the government to take top-notch care of all of us who served.

So far so good at the Thomas Creek Medical Center in Amarillo. I’ve been more than happy with the care I’ve gotten. There’s a provision to add: I haven’t yet gotten sick. I enjoy good health and to date my regular checkups have gone well. I appreciate the respect shown by the VA hospital staff.

But this scandal — and I’ll call it that, because it rises to that level — needs to be resolved quickly and thoroughly all at once.

I’ll accept Denis McDonough’s assessment that the commander in chief is “mad as hell.” He damn well better be angry. He also needs to demonstrate that anger in a timely and highly visible manner.

One top Veterans Affairs official is gone. There well might have to be more of them shown the door. There also should be criminal proceedings launched against anyone shown to be culpable in the deaths of those veterans.

Yeah, some of these scandals pack a more powerful punch than others. This one hurts.