The VA Scandal and the Do Nothing President


The most, "handled," least engaged, most hyped, least qualified President since Warren G. Harding has decided that the growing Veterans Administration scandal is now worth media pronouncements.  He says he is outraged.  He says this will be examined and corrected.  He says he has faith in VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.  I do not feel assured. 

This problem has only grown worse since 2008, and no one in a position to do something, least of all this President, seems to give a damn.  The problem goes back decades—and, yes, the Bush administration gets part of the blame.  But so do the Clinton, Reagan, and Carter administrations.  But none of those men are currently in power.  President Obama has had his hand at the tiller for six years now, and all it seems to firmly grasp is the shaft of a golf club!

            The Obama-Biden transition team was alerted to the on-going problem in 2008.  As recently as a year ago House VA Committee Chairman, Jeff Miller (R-FL) sent Obama a letter begging for his attention to this matter.  Miller was fairly specific, “I am writing to bring to your attention an alarming pattern of serious and significant patient care issues at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers across the country. Recent events…provide a perfect illustration of the management failures, deceptions, and lack of accountability permeating VA’s healthcare system…I believe your direct involvement and leadership is required.”

            Most Americans (President and first lady excepted of course—golf, shopping, meals to plan, celebrities to meet, the pace is grueling) are learning more daily about the woeful condition of the VA system.  We know that we pay our soldiers crap (it is supposed to be an army of citizen-soldiers, I get that and approve of it), but in exchange we are supposed to grant them certain advantages.  The medical care available in the Veterans Administration is one of them.  The VA is our nation’s first try at national medical care.  Take a good, long look at what happens when you put bureaucrats and the federal government in charge of your medical care.

            Men and women, with whom this government made a bargain, are suffering, they are dying, and they are being played through, “gaming” the system so the sorry-ass pencil pushers of the VA can say they are covering government guide lines.  One of the most egregious memos that surfaced talks about systematically logging in appointments for vets, then cancelling them and indicating that the patient, not the system cancelled.  This cold, cruel way of, “beating the system” doesn’t offer one iota of concern for the veteran seeking help.  Providing care is not the goal here, fooling the government, keeping your job and spending the money is.  

If you want to know what the American medical system will look like in 10 years, just look at the current scandal at the Veterans Administration.  Remember that President Obama said he had (yes, once again) only heard about the situation on television.  I don’t know what offends me more, that our Asterisk-in-Chief is this blasé about the duties of his office, or that he thinks the public doesn’t care that he doesn’t care.  How many times has his response to a serious problem been, “…whoops, sorry, just heard about the VA (Benghazi, IRS, GA office…name your scandal).”  Evidently cancelling those daily briefings that every President up to him has received isn’t paying off.  But, of course, they were interfering with the tee times of the President who has played more golf than even William Howard Taft. 

As Memorial Day approaches, let’s keep the faith with our veterans. 

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