VA Scandal—a Battlefield of Deceit, Delays and Death for Veterans

The VA has many truly dedicated doctors,

nurses, and health professionals who

do their best to genuinely serve America’s

veterans. I salute their conscientious work

and commitment

under difficult conditions,

often in a culture

of fear and intimidation

if they identify

 

News headlines

since the Phoenix scandal

first broke in late

April, however, clearly

show a dark underbelly

in the VA that is the

antithesis of dedication

to patients. It speaks of a “Code of

Corruption,” not the Military’s Code of

Honor that America’s veterans have upheld.

The U.S. military has an admirable code

of ethics: duty, honor, and sacrifice. Their

Code is to protect the vulnerable, shield

civilians when possible, watch their fellow

soldier’s back, and leave no one behind in

combat. Our soldiers, holding themselves to

these standards, trusted that the country

they served would also honor its commitment

to them for medical care when needed.

 

Now we see VA bureaucrats, administrators,

and politicians whose only “Code”

seems to be the opposite of the military

ethos: lie, cover up, cheat to protect my

income at all costs, even if veterans die while

I cook the books.

 

Recent headlines tell the story eloquently:

 

• “VA Internal Audit: Wait-list Fraud

Found at 64% of VA Facilities”

 

• “VA Denies Coverage for US Air Force

Veteran with Malignant Brain Tumor”

 

• “VA IG report confirms: 1,700 vets

seeking care weren’t on official wait

list at Phoenix VA, wait times for others

averaged 115 days”

 

• Do Not “…send out any more non-VA

care GI requests for endoscopy until

further notice”

 

• “Deaths at Phoenix VA Hospital May

Be Tied to Delayed Care”

When I worked in a VA early in my

career, there were problems with wait times,

busy emergency departments, overloaded

doctors and nurses, and a shortage of specialists.

 

Overall, however, veterans were

treated with compassion, concern, and

appropriate care.

 

Now, however, the VA has seemingly

become a Machiavellian extension of the

very battlefields veterans thought they were

leaving when they came home. Today’s

whistleblowers describe a degree of callousness,

deceit, greed, nest-feathering, denial

of proper care, and outright malevolence at

multiple VA hospitals that is orders of magnitude

worse than anything I ever saw in

the VA years ago.

 

Across the U.S., the Code of Corruption

means that administrators set up secret

waiting lists to hide outrageously long wait

times. The falsified wait times improved

their “outcomes” to qualify for financial

bonuses. Corrupt, self-interested actions are

common in government-run systems that

have no accountability and little oversight.

Good employees who want to speak out are

threatened with job loss and career damage.

Not everyone has been silenced by the

intimidation. Courageous whistleblowers

continue to come forward with more disturbing

data almost daily. They provide a

portent of what is to come for all Americans

under the government-run Obamacare,

when its full impact hits after 2016 elections.

Here are some recent examples:

 

• In Phoenix, 40 veterans died while

waiting to see a doctor, 1700 were confirmed

to be on a secret waiting list,

and others’ average wait times were

almost 4 months. Yet the hospital

administrator was paid a $9,000 bonus

for her “quality outcomes.”

 

• Falsified records about wait times have

been reported so far in Ft. Collins,

Wyoming, San Antonio, Austin,

Albuquerque, and Chicago.

 

• Pittsburgh VA employees have been

accused of covering up veterans’ deaths

from contaminated water supplies.

 

• Los Angeles kept more than 60 veterans’

bodies in a morgue for over a year

without proper burial.

 

• Currently, it takes veterans about 160

days to access health benefits once

back in the U.S. There is a backlog of

close to 350,000 benefits claims to be

 

• According to the Cato Institute,

appeals of VA decisions have an average

wait time of 1,598 days—that is 53

months, or 4.4 years!

 

This is the same “death by bureaucracy”

that we have seen in Canada and England

under medical systems controlled by government

agents rather than medical professionals

answering to the needs of patients.

Will YOUR life be next when we move

into “the-VA-for-all” of Obamacare?

 

As a Nation, we must restore our Moral

Compass that values individual life as God’s

gift, not the Government’s.