VA Scandal: The Stain on America's Soul

After major scandals shuddered the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Obama Administration pledged to improve health care for America's military men and women.  More than two years have passed and nothing has changed, except the media and politicians have developed amnesia.

The shame of dozens of retired military men and women dying while they waited for treatment should have awakened the government to the urgency of the situation.  Instead, the plodding VA bureaucracy has shuffled top administrators, but done little else to address the shoddy treatment.

For those with short memories, the Department of Veterans Affairs was jolted in 2014 when a congressional investigation uncovered malfeasance at the Phoenix VA Hospital.  It found at least 40 cases where the wait times "contributed to the deaths" of military people. 

The actual number of deaths remains in dispute.  Some outsiders believe the number may be closer to 83.  The outcry prompted the VA's chief watchdog to launch an investigation.  The probe found wait time problems at 51 of the 73 VA hospitals that were reviewed by investigators. 

After those findings were made public, there was a universal cry for change.  Instead of a sweeping housecleaning, the VA brushed the scandal under the rug. Even worse, soulless executives rewarded themselves with $3.3 million in bonuses in 2015 instead of lopping off the heads of the guilty.

An independent review of the Veterans Affairs' health care, released in September of 2015, found a "significant leadership crisis" at the agency and called for a complete overhaul of the system.  The report's collaborators included Rand Corp., McKinsey Company and the Institute of Medicine. 

Nowhere is the management crisis more evident than at the beleaguered Phoenix VA Hospital.  It is now operating under its seventh director in the past three years.  The last head of the giant VA department was Bob McDonald, an Obama appointee who was a retired consumer product executive.

Now President Trump has rattled the calcified culture at the department with the nomination of David Shulkin, a hospital chief executive with private sector experience in health care. Shulkin, unanimously approved by the Senate, becomes the first non-veteran to lead the VA in 86 years. 

Most of the previous VA department heads were plucked from the military.  However, they had no experience in running a behemoth medical organization.  Veterans Affairs is the largest integrated health care system in the U.S. with 1,233 facilities, including 168 medical centers.

Nearly nine million veterans were served last year, according to the department.  The VA not only offers health care, but also provides counseling, operates community living centers, distributes financial benefits and oversees 128 national cemeteries. 

The job requires a gargantuan workforce of 325,935, earning the VA the title of the largest non-military department in the massive federal government.  This sprawling bureaucracy, founded in 1930, has grown too unwieldy and unresponsive to serving veterans.  It must be streamlined.    

The new VA chief needs to carve up the department, creating a new stand-alone agency to deliver health care to veterans.  Under the current organizational structure, health care is just one cog in a bloated department.  It deserves its own chief executive, reporting directly to the president.   

Once the new agency is birthed, the top echelons of the organization need to be staffed with professionals with hospital and medical operational experience.  Too often in the past, the VA has hired veterans for jobs that should be occupied by those with health care credentials.

In Washington, the knee-jerk response to any crisis is to throw money at the problem instead of dealing with the underlying issues.  On cue, the Congress increased the department's budget for fiscal year 2017 to $182.3 billion.  That's a hike in discretionary spending of 4.9 percent from 2016.

Although money can buy new equipment for hospitals and fund increased hiring, it does not guarantee America's veterans will get better health care.  That's why one of the first steps of the new administrator should be to conduct a third-party assessment of the current performance.

The days of asking the VA to evaluate itself are over.  Civilian medical professionals need to do a thorough evaluation of the department's facilities, treatment and follow-up procedures, bench marked against the nation's best integrated medical facilities.   

As part of this process, new standards for care should be adopted.  Pay for employees and executives alike should be tied to meeting goals for timely, professional health care delivery.  If implemented correctly, this pay-for-performance package will shake-up the department's fossilized culture.    

America has turned its back on the brave men and women who served in the nation's armed forces for too long.  The country must never again accept any excuses for shabby treatment of veterans. America's veterans deserve nothing less than the best health care the country has to offer.     

Scandal Dishonors America's Vets

The President of the United States, the most powerful person in the country, yearns for Americans to believe that he learned from the media about the sleazy scandal over health care for veterans. He didn't hear it from a cabinet member.  Nor from his chief-of-staff.  Or from one of his countless flunkies.

Bad news always reaches the president's ears via news reports.  It is an admission that strains the bounds of credulity. However, if we accept the president's confession as truth, then Obama is the most out-of-touch chief executive in modern history.

Over days, media reports sprouted in various cities about Veterans Administration officials falsifying documents, covering up their own incompetence and conspiring to delay treatments for military men and women which allegedly led to deaths and suicides.

Once the media ruckus erupted, apparently no administration official bothered to call the White House to brief the president.  To the disbelief of reporters, presidential mouthpiece Jay Carney continued to insist that Obama was so isolated that he heard about the scandal from a television news report.  

Yet information on the problem-riddled veterans hospitals was available at his fingertips.  The congressional watchdog Government Accountability Office (GAO) has exposed mismanagement, incompetence and flawed leadership for at least two decades, including as recently as April of this year.

Last month's GAO report cited the "inconsistent implementation of the Veterans Hospital Administration (VHA) scheduling policy (that) may have resulted in increased wait times or delays in scheduling timely medical appointments."

In its investigation, the GAO uncovered evidence that clinics "did not use the electronic wait list to track new patients in need of medical appointments as required by VHA policy, putting these patients at risk for not receiving timely care."

Two years earlier, the GAO issued a scathing indictment of the "lack of leadership" at the highest levels  as one of the key issues in resolving problems with veterans care.  The agency recommended "sustained leadership attention" to ensure continuity of healthcare for the nation's wounded warriors.

Perhaps, the president was on vacation or playing golf when these and other reports were circulated. But it is unconscionable to suggest that no one pointed out the deficiencies to a president who has pledged to make goverrnment-run health care for veterans a hallmark of his administration.
   
Only this occupant of the White House would expect to be absolved of any blame because he knew nothing.

Whatever his explanation, the scandal is a scorching indictment of Obama and his administration.  Although the president has managed to duck one scandal after another thanks to a submissive media, this one smacks of corruption that rises to the level of criminal behavior.

What began as an isolated incident at a Phoenix VA hospital, has spread like a contagion to at least 19 states.  Whistle blowers, including current and former VA officials,  are emerging from the shadows to expose shabby health care practices.

Unlike the Benghazi and IRS scandals, this one has local legs. Television, radio stations, newspapers and online media in cities across the nation are dogging local Veterans Administration officials for answers.  The result is a tsunami of coverage that threatens to sink the president's already low standing.

Even as the scandal swirled around him for days, Obama dawdled until he was shamed into publicly addressing  the allegations. He promised an investigation, but dodged any responsibility and embraced Eric K. Shinseki, Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.  

In 2009, Obama choose the retired U.S. Army general for the post, the second largest among the 15 cabinet level departments.  His appointment followed a string of campaign promises to improve veterans health care by reducing wait times and streamlining bureaucratic red tape.

In his December 16 report to Congress, Shinseki wrote that his department had succeeded in "improving the timeliness, accessibility and quality of health care and benefits delivery to our Veterans" during 2013.

It is obvious the assessment has no factual basis.  Either Shinseki lied or he is so removed from the day-to-day workings of his sprawling department that he was clueless about what was happening in VA hospitals throughout the U.S.  In either case, the secretary deserves to be fired immediately.

More heads also need to roll within the veterans department.  But under Obama, no one ever gets a pink slip or is held accountable.  He always is more concerned with the political spin than he is serious about action to fix any problems. His first priority is to make sure he is not seen as culpable

America's military veterans deserve better.  Their service and sacrifices on behalf of our nation are dishonored when they are denied timely medical treatment and ignored by a bureaucracy that tries to hide the truth with deception.

These brave men and women should not be made to wait while Obama's lackeys launch a long overdue investigation that will take months or years.  The GAO has already documented a litany of malfeasance. Action is needed now.  Today.  Every second wasted another veteran will die unnecessarily.