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| Web: | http://americancoldwarvets.org/ |
| Blog: | Cold War Veterans Blog |
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| Web: | http://americancoldwarvets.org/ |
| Blog: | Cold War Veterans Blog |
| Email: | Sean.Eagan@gmail.com |
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| Network: | My Fast Pitch! Profile |
Editorial: With VA, it's always worse than we expect
Our View: How many vets died waiting for care? VA records are such a mess that we'll never know.
The Arizona Republic
September 5, 2015
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2015/09/05/va-scandal-phoenix/71668808/
With the Department of Veterans Affairs, it is always wise to assume things are worse than they first appear.
Since the VA's appalling care scandals were first exposed by The Arizona Republic in early 2014, the agency's problems invariably have proved worse than investigators first were led to believe. A new inspector-general report exposing details of the VA's appalling system of record-keeping validates the cynicism.
It is horrid.
As of September 2014, the Veterans Health Administration had approximately 867,000 pending applications, three quarters of which had been created more than five years earlier. Data from the Social Security Administration, a far more professionally run government agency, showed more than a third of those -- 307,000 vets – were dead.
The inspector general launched the investigation at the request of the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla.
Miller, the nation's most persistent VA detective, had uncovered evidence that perhaps 47,000 vets had died while their applications for VA health care were pending. The true figure proved to be six times greater. Six times worse than he thought.
It gets still more discouraging.
It has been more than 20 months since The Republic's Dennis Wagner first uncovered the VA's duplicitous waiting lists for vets seeking to enter the health-care system. Since then, according to the inspector general, the agency still "has not adequately established procedures to identify individuals who have died, including those with pending health-care enrollment records."
The agency also may have deleted more than 10,000 unprocessed applications, simply because they had reached the agency's five-year expiration date. Many of those unprocessed applications had been marked as completed.
As reported by Wagner, the agency recently submitted a plan to improve its record-keeping technology and practices. We are not hopeful.
Even as it has attempted to address the issues exposed first at the Phoenix VA hospital, the agency has consistently demonstrated an inability to anticipate the level of services that veterans, especially those returning from war, will need. That planning haplessness has sent the VA tumbling into chronic budget shortfalls for two straight fiscal years. When are they going to learn?
The answer to that question is becoming increasingly, tragically, apparent. Perhaps never.
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Tim Mantegna
House Committee on Veterans' Affairs
202-225-3527
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VA BENEFITS A TOTAL SURPRISE FOR ELDERLY VETERAN
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
He had no idea someone was still fighting for him ...
"This veteran's claim came across my desk for appeal review," said VFW Service Officer Mary Bandini of California. "I could not get in touch with him for months, but I continued to work the case on his behalf."
The veteran is John Rizzo*, a Marine in the Battle of Guadalcanal and Air Force pilot in the Korean War. During Air Force training, Rizzo's plane crashed, breaking his back and ending his accomplished military career.
Rizzo was medically discharged and filed his first VA claim way back in 1954. He was denied. In 2008, he submitted another claim. This time for a wheelchair ramp. Again, denied. The unjust denial cost him a broken hip …twice.
"With the help of our National Veterans Service team, we were able to argue for the secondary conditions that required Rizzo to use a wheelchair," said Bandini. "When I finally got word that his claim was headed to the court, I submitted a written statement of support. I still couldn't reach him, so I relied solely on his file."
Rizzo didn't ask for much. All he wanted was a ramp. What he got was full benefits and six-figure retroactive pay dating back to 2008.
When Rizzo's check arrived in the mail, he was skeptical. This must be a clerical error, he thought. He had no idea that someone was still fighting for him.
When Bandini was finally able to reach Rizzo, who is 90 years old, she assured him the check was not a mistake and that his claim had been accepted after all these years. He was beyond elated.
"He wanted to meet so he could thank me personally, but I feel like he's the one who deserves the thanks for his service," said Bandini.
"Seeing a veteran get approved after so many years is the best part of the job," said Bandini. "I was not able to get him a ramp, but I did get him enough money to build one. The contractor starts working on it next week."
Bandini is passionate about her job and helping veterans stand their ground against the VA … against the system that so many veterans have gotten lost in.
"Veterans should put as much priority on advocating for themselves now as they once put on protecting this nation. They have earned that right," Bandini concluded.
*Name changed to protect privacy.
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House Passes Two Historic VA Reform Bills
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the House passed two pieces of VA reform legislation. The VA Accountability Act of 2015 passed with a vote of 256 – 170. The Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015 passed with a vote of 385 – 34. Chairman Miller released the following statement:
"I applaud my colleagues for stepping up today to address the troubling lack of accountability eroding VA's ability to care for our veterans. The VA Accountability Act will provide the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs the ability to make real reforms and bring much needed accountability to the department. Today, we stand with our veterans because the status quo has failed them and the American people for far too long.
"Just over two weeks ago, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that because of its inability to budget, VA hospitals around the country would be shutting down in August. Today, the House passed the Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015 to ensure that does not happen. The bill is designed to rescue a mismanaged VA, providing the resources to keep the doors open, expanding access and choice to veterans and setting the stage to consolidate VA's uncoordinated and wasteful non-VA care programs into the Veterans Choice Program.
"I urge the Senate to take up both these measures immediately. We cannot allow VA's incompetence to continue to harm America's veterans. And I sincerely ask President Obama to sign both in to law – to take the money without the accountability will only lead to continued failure." – Rep. Jeff Miller, Chairman, House Committee on Veterans' Affairs
Related:
Chairman Miller's Floor Statement on The VA Accountability Act of 2015
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| Blog: | Cold War Veterans Blog |
| Email: | Sean.Eagan@gmail.com |
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