Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki apologized publicly Friday for what he called an “indefensible” lack of integrity among some senior leaders of the VA health-care system, and he announced several remedial steps, including a process to remove top officials at the troubled VA medical center in Phoenix.
Shinseki gave no indication that he intends to resign, despite growing calls for him to step down because of the scandal.
May 30, 2014
"Shinseki resigns after VA scandal."
WaPo headline — apparently true, but not yet supported by the accompanying text, which begins:
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As many others have said before, this is America's health care future with Obamacare.
Remember when people were telling us this was a fake scandal? It was just some books being cooked?
His penance should be that in his retirement (using the VA benefits he earned while in the Army) he can only use the VA for all of his medical care and that he has to make appointments using the name of Private John Smith.
Obama will be shocked when he reads this, and mad as hell.
It's good he's out at the VA, because before him, there were no problems at the VA. It was a paradise of socialized medicine, just as Paul Krugman.
Now that he's gone, once again, it'll return to paradise.
Just as Obamacare and single payer can work, we just need the right people! If only we could get the right people, this time, it'll work!
A sad way for Shinseki to leave public service, but he had to go. He was not capable of managing an organization that did not willingly obey his instructions.
I think he’s deeply disappointed in the fact that bad news did not get to him
But this is a hallmark of Obama's administration, IMO. No one is brave enough (or everyone is too much of a sycophant) to tell people above them that bad things are happening. So the head honchos learn about it from the News Reports. See also: Incurious leaders.
The Post probably knew Shinseki had resigned before he did.
In about a decade, under Obamacare, the VA of 2009-2014 will be thought of as a golden age.
And now they've rewritten the story, as well as the headline. Though the URL is still ".../shinseki-apologizes-for-va-health-care-scandal/".
No contradiction between the headline and the text. Maybe he unintentionally resigned.
The lack of integrity wasn't limited to the higher level officials. It extends down to every individual who cooked the books to get performance bonuses. They should all be forced to repay the bonuses and face criminal prosecution for fraud.
I know, I know. Crime by government officials doesn't count. At best, some people will be allowed to retire with full benefits.
Should say: "Shinseki resigns DURING VA scandal."
WaPo (apparently) misleads again. Amazed, I am not. Jury requests further testimony.
"[A]fter VA scandal"?
So it's over? All fixed then? I'm sure the vets will be happy to hear it.
The bus had not arrived when the story was written. It came along after and Shinseki went under promptly.
If Shinseki resigns it will prove he's not the man that Hillary is: She didn't resign after Benghazi (of course, that was only four deaths, so maybe that's the difference).
At 9:00 AM He apologized and said he would do better. He apparently did not intend to resign at the 10:30 meeting scheduled at the White House.
If WAPO says he "resigned," it means he was fired.
If he had any honor, he'd already have resigned. He's just covering Obama's ass now.
Remember, he got the job because of political patronage. He disagreed with Bush on Iraq.
This scandal also points out the problem of government healthcare workers cooking books and comparing Europe stats to USA stats. How can anyone say Europe or Canada provide better healthcare? Where do your metrics come from?
Oh, the government run healthcare providers. Interesting. They are so trust worthy. Like the VA.
Obama said the VA scandal is a distraction, a distraction "we don’t have time for..."
So how did those poor dying veterans work up enough energy to become a distraction? With Vita-Jex tablets?
Of course I'm misquoting Obama, but it's fun to do to Lord Zero what he and his myrmidons do to us conservatives routinely.
Will Shinseki report on what the view is from under the bus?
And the wheels of the bus go round and round . . .
Who audits the auditors? Congress?
Politically, this critique of the VA is a no-brainer. After all, denying, delaying or incompetently delivering benefits to veterans who are entitled to them and have sacrificed so much for us is grotesque: the moral equivalent of kicking dogs and stealing food from children. But this political consensus and opportunity for reform will all be for naught unless it targets the main cause of the VA’s problems: Congress
We should be firing Congress
Phoenix last audited 2007.
I met GEN Shinseki when he was Chief of Staff of the Army. I'm surprised at how badly things have gone at the VA under his leadership.
Start wars that produce lots of hard-to-assess brain injuries.
Filibuster several VA funding bills. One only a few months ago.
Express outrage over backlogs.
garage mahal said...
Start wars that produce lots of hard-to-assess brain injuries.
Filibuster several VA funding bills. One only a few months ago.
Express outrage over backlogs.
GM, that's crap.
The big driver of VA costs is folks my age, the bow wave of VN vets in the 60-70 range
VA budgets increased by 86% under Bush and 78% move under Obama.
The TBI costs are all on DoD.
There are two types of backlog in play.
1. The initial intake claims backlog that went down under Bush and doubled under Obama because of relaxation in the parameters for filing (e.g. evrybody in Vietnam is now assumed to have an Agent Orange claim...)
2. backlogs for clinical services like colonoscopies (again, is VN Vets). and other things like MRI done inhouse. the GP medicine.
This is where the dying is happening, on the clinical side.
To the victor goes the political spoils. The VA has always been run as a spoils system of sinecure jobs awarded like Ambassadorships are awarded to the political influence brokers in winning campaigns.
Gaming the VA Health Care System for fun and profit has been the normal situation.
And protecting the sinecure job holders careers in a broken monopoly system has always been VA's raison d'etre.
What has seemed funny the past week is hearing a chorus of frog like croaking mantras that everyone WANTS to assist Veterans so much. Getting away with that total lie is why VA management jobs are so much fun for the Dems and the GOP con men alike.
"Filibuster several VA funding bills."
-- "Since 9/11, the VA budget has increased by 235%, from FY2001′s $45 billion annual budget to FY2014′s $150.7 billion."
How much more did the administration need not to lie to veterans?
The Drill Sgt,
"He was not capable of managing an organization that did not willingly obey his instructions."
Bureaucracies do not change easily, even when facing impending doom. See the Chicago teachers union for a recent example.
This displays, again, why government involvement needs to be kept to the absolute minimum necessary.
They set an impossible task for the VA. They tied quality to whether or not a patient, regardless of what was wrong, could get an appointment within two weeks. They are understaffed and have a clunky electronic medical record that takes multiple clicks to enter orders and document, so there was no way their providers could meet that standard. I have a feeling the providers were told to meet it anyway.
garage mahal said...
"Start wars that produce lots of hard-to-assess brain injuries.
[snip more blah blah blah]"
It is boomers who are backlogged and dying. You do know the numbers of those who served in the Vietnam War era (pretty much all over 60yo now) versus the last 13 years? Right?
No?
Hmm. So you are just a brain addled prog without a clue by choice.
Interesting.
"They are understaffed and have a clunky electronic medical record that takes multiple clicks to enter orders and document, so there was no way their providers could meet that standard."
-- If the problem was that, then this would be worth talking about. It isn't. People willingly lied to veterans and created roadblocks to treatment.
That's the scandal, not, "It's hard to make it work, and it didn't."
Government employees were intentionally, willfully negligent and malicious to line their own pockets and protect their jobs, and people died.
garage: "Express outrage over backlogs."
There were no backlogs, according to the left.
Which is why obama gave out so many bonuses for outstanding performance to the VA execs.
And the left lauded the VA and used it as an example for the way things ought to be.
And obama was given great credit for this success.
So, now, all of sudden, there were backlogs all along.
'Cuz "Bush".
So, to summarize: obama attacked VA performance under Bush in 08 and told us he would do so much better.
Obama's guys cooked all the books (sound familiar?)
Obama gains great credit for fixing what that idiot Bush did based on BS numbers!
We find out it's all lies.
Lefty response? "Bush"
This was probably just some small thing done in the Cincinnati office.
Can the unearned incentive raises and bonuses be clawed back from federal employees who committed fraud to game the system?
"have a clunky electronic medical record that takes multiple clicks to enter orders and document, so there was no way their providers could meet that standard."
I was impressed with the VA adoption of the medical record back before I saw its implementation. The EMR that doctors are now dealing with is a perfect example of a bureaucracy product. I had a coronary arteriogram yesterday and was talking to the nurse. She told me that every older doctor had told her how much of a burden the EMR was and then, the next news she had was that they had retired.
That has also been my impression. I was an advocate until I saw what they had done with it.
It is a mess. One example, the doctor cannot enter any data until a diagnosis has been entered. Once the patent has been evaluated and a real diagnosis determined, the old diagnosis cannot be corrected or deleted.
The VA shows most of the consequences of a system that works like that.
traditional guy and Matthew Sablan are right.
Alas
Big government just can't run things well. This is another example. At the beginning of the Twentieth century it was all about how centralized scientific government was going to usher in the Golden Age. Well, now we have centralized government by the numbers and every month brings a new catastrophe caused by that kind of system. The Democrats are a reactionary group that still thinks that rubbish can work; the Republicans are the revolutionaries debating fiercely among themselves in an ineffective but vital way. One day we will rise and get America back.
garage mahal said...
"Start wars that produce lots of hard-to-assess brain injuries."
This has to be my all-time favorite GM comment. Think about his comment.
Oopsy, we picked the wrong kind of war. We sure were stupid. Should have started one with no chance of brain injuries.
Johanna Lapp said...
Can the unearned incentive raises and bonuses be clawed back from federal employees who committed fraud to game the system?
Not directly, but taking the bonuses based on fraud is of course fraud. An enterprising US Attorney could charge a few Hospital Administrators, make the bonus repayment part of the plead deal, and the money would roll in.
It is a mess. One example, the doctor cannot enter any data until a diagnosis has been entered. Once the patent has been evaluated and a real diagnosis determined, the old diagnosis cannot be corrected or deleted.
That's just crazy. the diagnosis is based on the data (in part). Doing it their way would seem to double the screening time and also creat egaps in record keeping.
Humperdink said...
Oopsy, we picked the wrong kind of war. We sure were stupid. Should have started one with no chance of brain injuries.
Double oopsy. The Army has made tremendous progress in saving wounded soldiers lives as they are evac'd from battle. Horrific injuries that previously were triaged to be dealt with by Chaplains and morphine doses are now likely to survive, and end up with life changing injuries...
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