"As a candidate for president, Mr. Obama denounced delays and poor care for veterans at hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs and vowed that his administration would address the backlogs and greatly improve care. He pledged in a 2008 campaign speech to build “a 21st-century V.A.” and to confront what he called “the broken bureaucracy of the V.A.”
It wouldn't be the first pledge or vow he has broke, and he didn't even have the decency to leave them in theater:
"Obama facing political storm on VA hospitals; Waits for results of review as GOP turns up the heat" by Michael D. Shear and Jonathan Weisman | New York Times May 21, 2014
WASHINGTON — The White House fought on Tuesday to contain the growing political furor over allegations of misconduct at the nation’s veterans hospitals as Republicans, eager to use the issue in the midterm elections, seized on the reports as new evidence that President Obama is unable to govern effectively.
Oh, my war-promoting newspaper has framed it as a political issue!
Beyond that, this pathetic pos is aging I just found out about it! Same thing he said about the IRS, same thing he said about Libya, same thing he says every time his administration is caught up in scandal. He didn't know!
Well, I was taught that ignorance is not an excuse for criminality, nor is it a defense for incompetence or something worse: a $y$temic problem with nothing but a telegenic figurehead out front.
If that is the case, why is this man getting so much pre$$ day after day? Politics is the show the real ruler$ hide behind, isn't it -- with a paper loaded with the stuff.
Rob Nabors, the president’s deputy chief of staff, will fly to the veterans medical facility in Phoenix on Wednesday to assess the most damning reports — that government workers falsified data or created secret waiting lists to hide the long delays veterans faced before seeing doctors.
Regardless of how you feel about the wars, this is a colossal outrage and tremendous show of disrespect!
The president is also dispatching Denis R. McDonough, his chief of staff, to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to consult with the chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Senator Bernard Sanders, Independent of Vermont.
Related: Sanders Stymied Trying to Help Vets
Maybe he should run for prezident.
Lawmakers are working on bipartisan legislation that would give veterans officials greater authority to fire those responsible at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The House is expected to vote Wednesday on a bill and the Senate is expected to hold hearings on the legislation soon.
Inside the White House, officials said that there was no political panic but that the issue was of serious, substantive concern — unlike, the officials said, a previous Republican uproar over extra scrutiny given to Tea Party groups by the Internal Revenue Service.
Letting you know the arrogance of this White house, along with the fakery of Republican hearings. If they are not being taken seriously....
White House officials described Obama as eager for the results of an investigation into the allegations by the VA’s inspector general and a separate review of hospital practices being conducted by Nabors and Eric Shinseki, the secretary of the department.
Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, declined to say when Obama might address the situation again publicly.
He wants it to go away, but it will not. This is an immense scandal.
“He is not at all pleased with some of the allegations and will be extremely unhappy if some of them prove to be true,” Carney said.
I really don't give a crap how he feels about it.
Republican lawmakers intensified their criticism of Obama, and some made it clear they intended to use the incidents at the veterans hospitals as fodder for a broader political theme about incompetence in Obama’s administration.
The increasing reports of misconduct at numerous veterans hospitals other than Phoenix in recent weeks has prompted outrage among members of both parties demanding swift action.
Oh, it's not the political framing I was led to believe.
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PRINT COPY contained the following:
On Tuesday, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, repeated a call for the F.B.I. to pursue criminal violations.
“People are fed up and impatient,” Mr. Blumenthal said in an interview. “So am I.”
We all are.
As a candidate for president, Mr. Obama denounced delays and poor care for veterans at hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs and vowed that his administration would address the backlogs and greatly improve care. He pledged in a 2008 campaign speech to build “a 21st-century V.A.” and to confront what he called “the broken bureaucracy of the V.A.”
Then once again this administration can be summed up with one word: failure.
But more than five years into his presidency, Mr. Obama has again found himself exposed to political danger by a bureaucracy that seems beyond his immediate control.
In responding to the allegations of delays at veterans hospitals, the Obama White House has embraced what has become a familiar public relations pattern in dealing with political crises: Administration officials declare their outrage as they urge patience while an investigation is completed.
Sorry, but THAT FORMULA NO LONGER WORKING and I'M OFFENDED it is being USED!
The White House has also borrowed a page from its response to the debacle of the rollout of HealthCare.gov this past fall, when Mr. Obama sent a top aide to help repair the health care website and impose management discipline.
It's an emergency, and didn't that girl get fired?
By sending Mr. Nabors to assist Mr. Shinseki in his review, the White House is installing one of its own operatives to provide a direct pipeline of information to Mr. Obama.
Now everything will get fixed!
So far, White House officials have waved aside calls for Mr. Shinseki to resign in much the same way they rejected calls for the resignation of Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, over the botched health care rollout. Mr. Carney said Monday that the president still has confidence in Mr. Shinseki.
They are following a failed playbook.
Mr. Carney said the White House was supportive of the goals of legislation probably coming up for a vote on Wednesday in the House. The bill already has more than a half-dozen Democratic co-sponsors, including outspoken liberals such as Representative Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon, and is likely to pass overwhelmingly.
Too late, guys. PEOPLE DIED WAITING FOR CARE, and then it was COVERED UP!
But passage of that legislation is not likely to stop Mr. Obama’s critics in Congress — especially Republicans — from seeking to use the allegations at the veterans hospitals to their political advantage ahead of this fall’s elections."
Printed photo just below:
"DANCING IN D.C. -- Michelle Obama joined students Tuesday during the White House Talent Show, a first-ever activity held in the East Room. The event, sponsored by the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, included the schools participating in Turnaround Arts, a bid to increase student achievement through arts education (Boston Globe May 21 2014)."
Honestly, she makes me sick.
Someone else is angry!
"Obama angry over falsification of VA data, as criticism builds" by Brian Knowlton | New York Times May 19, 2014
WASHINGTON — President Obama is enraged about reports that some medical facilities run by the Department of Veterans Affairs have falsified data to hide substantial delays for veterans to see doctors, and he has demanded that the department’s leaders “fix these things,” the White House chief of staff said Sunday.
“The president is madder than hell, and I’ve got the scars to prove it, given the briefings that I’ve given the president” on the subject, the chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
He said the White House had “deployed additional staff over to the veterans administration to dig into this, to find out if this is a series of isolated cases or whether this is a systemic issue that we need to address with wholesale reform.”
Look at the damage control machinery whirring in action!
McDonough also called attention to what he said had been substantial increases in resources devoted to veterans care under Obama.
(Blog editors shoulders slump; shameless. Absolutely shameless)
Veterans groups have expressed anger over reports that workers at some medical centers kept secret waiting lists to disguise what could be waits of months by veterans to see doctors. The department’s inspector general is working with federal prosecutors to determine whether any crimes have been committed.
Sure looks criminal to me. I mean, forgery and fraud was a crime last I checked.
“We realize that the administration has done a lot for the veterans, but that isn’t the issue,” Dan Dellinger, director of the American Legion, said on CBS. He said that under the Veterans Affairs secretary, Eric K. Shinseki, “accountability hasn’t been there,” that there had been “egregious mismanagement of the entire system.”
Welcome to the AmeriKan empires, circa the early 21st century.
McDonough gave no indication that the president was considering dismissing Shinseki, despite calls from several Republican lawmakers and some veterans that he do so.
Asked whether Shinseki retained the president’s full confidence, and was the right person to lead any reforms, McDonough said “he will continue to work these issues until they’re fixed.”
When pressed about why the president had not publicly addressed the matter, McDonough replied: “Nobody is more outraged about this . . . than the president of the United States. And he will continue to press as it relates to this question of timely access to care until it is fixed.”
The interview was taped Friday, a day after Shinseki, in testimony before a Senate committee, declared that he was angry about the reported allegations and said that he had no intention of resigning.
House Republicans have scheduled a vote for Wednesday on legislation that would give Shinseki greater authority to fire or demote senior executives and administrators at the agency and its 152 medical centers.
The allegations of long waits for care at VA hospitals, some of which reportedly contributed to patient deaths, have triggered an election-year firestorm.
There it is. There it is. Was looking for that. Wanted you to know that.
Hey, at least the Pentagon is spared the outlays for vets care. That's the important thing. Pentagon is being squeezed by sequester. Need to stay focused on the mission, not some MASH deadweight holding us back.
Federal investigators visited a VA hospital in suburban Chicago to look into a report that secret lists were used to conceal long patient wait times for appointments. Senator Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, meanwhile, called for an investigation into reports that schedulers at a VA medical center in Albuquerque were ordered to falsify patient appointment records.
Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said the Veterans Affairs Department is suffering from ‘‘a systemic, cultural problem’’ that cannot be solved with piecemeal responses, such as the resignation of a top official....
That is sad and scary.
And if this government won't take care of the people who believed in it and served by risking their life.... what makes you think they give a crap about you, civilian -- other than getting in that pocket of cash.
Citing news reports that VA managers received performance bonuses even as internal audits revealed lengthy wait times for health care, McCain said Saturday in the weekly Republican radio and Internet address. Top VA officials too often have been ‘‘motivated by all the wrong incentives and rewards.’’
Epidemic across government. Recently happened at IRS because this government has so much tax loot it doesn't know what to do with it. It does know what not to do with it, and that is serve its people.
Beyond that, this is even MORE EGREGIOUS! I suppose phoning up appointment schedules takes a lot of time and hard work. Imagine if such efforts had been spent on the patient.
**************
Reports of long waits for appointments and processing benefit applications have plagued the VA for years.
Someone said he was going to fix it.
Officials have shortened benefits backlogs, but a former clinic director said up to 40 veterans died while awaiting treatment at the Phoenix VA hospital, where hospital staff allegedly kept a secret appointment list to mask the delays.
And that is just in Phoenix.
A VA nurse in Cheyenne, Wyo., was put on leave for allegedly telling employees to falsify appointment records. A VA investigation in December found that staffers at a Fort Collins, Colo., clinic were trained to make it appear as if veterans got appointments within 14 days.
Problems also have been reported in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Missouri, Texas, Florida, and other states.
Then this is a MASSIVE, MASSIVE SCANDAL and CRIME!
Robert Petzel, the VA’s undersecretary for health care, had been scheduled to retire this year but instead stepped down Friday.
Related: VA’s top health care official resigns
Petzel had said he would remain until the Senate confirmed a replacement, but a department official said Shinseki asked Petzel to leave immediately.
Shuffling deck chairs while the ship sinks.
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Related: The Articles of Obama's Impeachment
Yes, we can!
"Investigator: VA employees told to falsify records" by Dan Elliott | Associated Press May 07, 2014
DENVER — Employees at a veterans medical clinic in Colorado were instructed to falsify records to make it appear that patients were getting appointments close to the day requested, government investigators said.
Workers at the Fort Collins clinic were told to make their records show that veterans got appointments within 14 days of the day requested, whether or not it was true, according to a December report by investigators from the Veterans Affairs Department’s medical branch.
The investigation was first reported Monday by USA Today.
Investigators said they found no evidence that anyone’s health suffered because of the practice. They said the practice violated VA policy but did not break any laws.
Really?
The VA is already under criticism over allegations that up to 40 patients may have died because of delays in care at a veterans hospital in Phoenix. On Monday, the American Legion called for the resignations of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and two top aides.
The VA said Shinseki would not resign.
Representative Mike Coffman, a Colorado Republican and chairman of the House subcommittee on Veterans Oversight and Investigations, also called on Shinseki to resign, citing the Phoenix allegations and cost overruns at a VA hospital under construction in Denver.
Coffman said the committee would hold hearings on the Phoenix hospital matter.
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"House to subpoena records in VA hospital deaths" by Pauline Jelinek | Associated Press May 09, 2014
WASHINGTON — A House committee voted Thursday to subpoena records relating to a waiting list at the Phoenix veterans hospital, and officials said Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki had ordered a nationwide audit of access to care that the agency provides.
Meanwhile, Shinseki brushed aside calls for his resignation and got an unexpected political lifeline from House Speaker John Boehner following reports that 40 patients died because of delayed treatment at the Phoenix VA hospital.
But there is no evidence anyone's health suffered.
The American Legion and some in Congress have called for Shinseki’s ouster following allegations of patient deaths at the Phoenix VA hospital due to delays in care and a secret list the hospital kept of patients waiting for appointments to hide the delays.
That is not criminal, huh? Falsifying and forging medical records?
The House Veterans Affairs Committee voted unanimously to subpoena all e-mails and other records in which Shinseki and other VA officials may have discussed destruction of what the committee called ‘‘an alternate or interim waitlist’’ for veterans seeking care in Phoenix.
That makes it obstruction of justice, too.
A top VA official had told congressional staff last month that the ‘‘secret list’’ referred to in news reports may have been an ‘‘interim list’’ created by the hospital. And the committee had asked the VA on May 1 to answer why it was created, when it was destroyed, who authorized destruction, and under what authority.
This scandal is just starting. At least Obummer is out of the loop.
***********
The committee subpoenaed all documents relating to the destruction and gave Shinseki until 9 a.m. on May 19, to produce them. The VA said in a statement that it will review the subpoena and respond.
Earlier Thursday, Shinseki told CBS that he sent inspectors to Phoenix immediately after he learned of reports about the deaths.
The VA also said Thursday that Shinseki last month had ordered the Veterans Health Administration to do a ‘‘a face-to-face’’ audit over the next several weeks at all clinics at VA medical centers to make sure employees understand the VA’s policy and the need for continued integrity in managing patient access to care.
And at a Capitol Hill news conference, Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said: ‘‘I’m not ready to join the chorus of people calling on him to step down.’’ He added that there is a ‘‘systemic management issue throughout the VA that needs to be addressed.’’
Not by the people who have been piloting the ship!
Shinseki said last week that three officials at the Phoenix facility have been placed on leave while the VA inspector general investigates.
Paid, of course.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has long had a seemingly endless backlog and exceedingly long delays for treatment.
Boehner said the House is working on legislation that would give the head of the agency ‘‘more flexibility to fire people.’’
Which means the care will take even longer.
The White House has voiced support for Shinseki amid the calls for his ouster from the American Legion and from Republican Senators....
Veterans groups are split on whether he should resign. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Obama has full confidence in Shinseki. He said Shinseki shares the president’s passion for living up to the commitment the United States has made to its veterans.
That is disgusting public relations damage control.
Earnest told reporters traveling with Obama in California that the VA has made tremendous progress in reducing the case backlog. He said while the backlog is moving in the right direction, the White House won’t be satisfied until it is eliminated....
????????
At the same time, the VA has acknowledged that 23 patients have died as a result of delayed care in recent years.
It's up to 40 now, and that's only Phoenix.
The VA’s Office of Medical Inspector said clerks at a Fort Collins, Colo., clinic were instructed last year on how to falsify appointment records. Other problems have occurred in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Augusta, Ga.
And other states.
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"No proof VA treatment delays caused deaths, watchdog says; Lawmakers grill secretary over myriad problems" by Matthew Daly | Associated Press May 16, 2014
WASHINGTON — New complaints about long wait lists and falsified patient appointment reports have surfaced at Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics across the country, the department’s internal watchdog said Thursday, but he added there’s no proof so far that delays in treatment have caused any patient’s death.
:-(
It's right above and was a week ago!
VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said he was ‘‘mad as hell’’ about allegations of severe problems and said he was looking for quick results from a nationwide audit. He rejected calls for him to resign and a senator’s suggestion that he call in the FBI to investigate.
At a sometimes-combative congressional hearing, Richard Griffin, the department’s acting inspector general, said that after an initial review of 17 people who died while awaiting appointments at the Phoenix VA hospital, none of the deaths appeared to have been caused by delays in treatment.
If you say so.
‘‘It’s one thing to be on a waiting list, and it’s another thing to conclude that as a result of being on the waiting list that’s the cause of death, depending on what your illness might have been at the beginning,’’ Griffin told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.
I'll remember that when you book an appointment, asshole. This is the good guy looking after the welfare and integrity of the services?
Griffin said his office is working off several lists of patients at the giant Phoenix facility, which treats more than 80,000 veterans a year. He said a widely reported list of 40 patients who died while awaiting appointments ‘‘does not represent the total number of veterans that we’re looking at.’’ He said his office has 185 employees working on the Phoenix case, including criminal investigators, and said he expects to have a report completed in August. The US attorney’s office in Arizona and the Justice Department’s public integrity section are assisting in the investigation.
Blah, blah, f***ing, blah.
Since reports of the Phoenix problems came to light last month, allegations about problems at VA facilities have spread nationwide. At least 10 new allegations about manipulated waiting times and other problems have surfaced in the past three weeks, Griffin said.
Shinseki told the committee that he hopes to have preliminary results within three weeks on audits he ordered at the VA’s 150 medical centers and 820 community outpatient clinics nationwide in an effort to determine how widespread the treatment delays and falsified reports are.
‘‘I’m not aware, other than a number of isolated cases, where there is evidence of that,’’ he replied when the committee’s chairman, Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, asked bluntly if VA officials at the facilities were ‘‘cooking the books.’’
It's scary to think our hard-edged, best we have military men are filled with such delusion and full of lies.
Shinseki resisted calls from Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, to call in the FBI.
‘‘Isn’t there evidence here of criminal wrongdoing, that is falsifying records, false statements to the federal government? That’s a crime,’’ said Blumenthal, a former state attorney general and federal prosecutor.
Apparently, in 21st-century AmeriKa, the government is above the law.
VA operates the largest single health care system in the country, serving some 9 million veterans a year.
Yeah, keep that in mind when you start hollering for this government to provide single-payer, universal coverage because this is the result.
Surveys show that patients are mostly satisfied with their care but that access to it is becoming more of a problem. Vietnam veterans are aging, and increasing numbers of vets from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are seeking treatment for physical and mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorders.
The agency has a 14-day target for seeing patients after they ask for appointments. Some lawmakers called that target unrealistic and said basing employee bonuses and pay raises on it is outrageous.
Oh, so THAT IS WHY the LOGS were MANIPULATED! Good Lord!!
‘‘Giving bonuses to hospital directors for running a system that places priority on gaming the system and keeping their [wait list] numbers down — rather than provide care to veterans — must come to an end,’’ said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington.
It's the AmeriKan way!
Shinseki said he was ‘‘mad as hell’’ over the allegations, vowed to hold workers accountable for any misconduct, and welcomed President Obama’s appointment Wednesday of deputy White House chief of staff Rob Nabors to review VA health care procedures.
Yup, wheels in motion and things being fixed. Never mind how it got so bad in the first place.
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You may want to stay out of the VA hospital anyway:
"Employee shot during scuffle at Ohio veterans hospital" | Associated Press May 06, 2014
DAYTON, Ohio — A Veterans Affairs hospital employee and a retired worker were struggling over a gun in a break room Monday when the firearm went off, leading to the employee’s shooting and the retiree’s arrest, police said....
The suspect and victim apparently knew each other....
The shooting, during the lunch hour in the basement of the hospital’s main building in the service and operations area, caused a lockdown at the hospital as FBI agents searched the building. Authorities also blocked roads leading to the hospital complex....
Scheduled appointments were on hold!!
Was this a real event or staged fiction -- if it even occurred at all?
Interesting timing, too! Just before the whole scandal broke!
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Related:
"Tim Cook wasn’t thinking. He was hurting, hurting so bad that he wanted to die. Tim was drinking and taking drugs, self-medicating. His father kept calling the VA.
“They just don’t have the resources,” Joe Cook said. “The people in Washington paid for the war, but they haven’t paid to take care of the warriors who fought it.”
Last March, Tim Cook sneaked out of a detox center and took something that killed him. His death certificate lists the location of death as Worcester. But they could have put down Haditha or Fallujah, and it would have been just as accurate."
Or the Boston Globe newsroom for that matter, one of those news organizations that helped lead the charge and is still out front with the propaganda.
Related: Guarding Against Suicide
Don't start wars based on false-flagging lies and falsely promote them under virtuous values.
Then, 50 years later they will come back with an admission that, yes, they may well have poisoned you:
"Panel to study Agent Orange residue exposure" by Chad Garland | Associated Press May 15, 2014
SALEM, Ore. — The Veterans Affairs Department has long resisted disability claims from service members who said chemical residue left in Vietnam War-era planes that were used to spray defoliants over Southeast Asia caused them severe illnesses, including cancer.
Enough have died now so they can admit it.
This summer, a panel of independent scientists will try to determine whether those veterans could have been exposed to the toxins in defoliants, including Agent Orange, at a level that would be dangerous to their health.
Oh, it's not even an admission yet.
It will be another two decades before they come to any conclusion.
If the panel, which hosts the first of a series of closed meetings and public hearings Thursday, finds a link, the service members could be eligible for tax-free disability compensation of up to several thousand dollars a month.
They deserve it, but I will bet they won't find a link or will say more study needed.
That’s something Wes Carter, a retired Air Force major, believes is long overdue.
‘‘We’ve got some sick folks that are not allowed to go into the VA,’’ said Carter, a former Oregon resident leading the crusade. He believes his prostate cancer and other disorders are due to his exposure to dioxin, a contaminant found in Agent Orange.
Carter served on C-123s in the Air Force Reserves as a medic from 1974 to 1980. The planes had been used to spray defoliants to destroy crops and eliminate jungle cover used by the North Vietnamese Army and the Vietcong.
It was CHEMICAL WARFARE, but since the U.S. doesn't do that it is not called that.
The military stopped the spraying by early 1971 over concerns that some defoliants contained compounds harmful to humans.
Related: War is not healthy for children and other living things
Or anyone or anything, for that matter -- other than war profiteers and bankers.
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Time for me to abandon the blog for today.
