Too bad Eric Shinseki left government service at the lowest point of his career, he should have and he deserves a scarlet letter for shame.
Alas, the VA audit report is here, it does virtually nothing to solve what the whistleblowers have revealed.
For reference, the House Veteran Affairs Committee did their job and contacted Shinseki by letters more than once. While letters seem feeble or shallow, they are in fact a part of Congressional record, such that Shinseki could never claim ignorance of the gigantic malfeasance that required and begged for his attention and action.
The House passed at least 6 bills in the last several years in an earnest attempt to fix the VA. By virtue of these bills alone should have gained the attention of Shinseki as every government agency has a congressional liaison that keeps pace with all legislative actions. All the legislation passed by the House, arrived in the Senate and well, Harry Reid and of course Senate Veterans Affairs Chairman Bernie Sanders were too busy at lashing out at other matters like the Koch Brothers to take up the measures.
Given the gravity of the VA and the solutions passed by the House, there is zero excuse for the Senate leadership to claim stupid on the matters, there is a paper trail and congressional record to prove the actions. Both Harry Reid and Bernie Sanders belong before ethics committees for violations, they belong in an investigation by FBI for being complicit in perpetuating death, sickness and actually falsifying government documents.
Where is the outrage? How many moral compasses are broken? What were the DNC’s talking points? Where was Barack Obama? Where was the White House Chief of Staff?
A whistleblower in Arkansas reported a patient choked on his own vomit and died the next day because emergency equipment was not properly stocked at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Little Rock.
Another whistleblower said a patient died from a heart attack at a veterans’ hospital in Maine after the on-duty doctor failed respond to an emergency code, delaying proper treatment for more than two hours.
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The Democratic-led Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs failed to hold sufficient oversight hearings into problems at the Department of Veterans Affairs despite Republican demands dating back more than a year to do so.
The VA, moreover, failed to provide the committee with information necessary to address problems, congressional insiders say.
The committee, chaired by independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with the Democratic Senate majority, held only seven oversight hearings to address problems, three legislative hearings to discuss new bills, and two markups to rewrite legislation in the 113th Congress that began in January 2013.
The committee’s lack of initiative angered Republicans on the committee, who wanted to address health-care issues like the kind that led to secret waiting lists and preventable veteran deaths at the Phoenix, Arizona VA Medical Center.
In Jackson, Miss., seven whistleblowers came forward with allegations that patients’ health was jeopardized by filthy conditions and unread imaging tests like X-rays.
Other practices in Jackson included scheduling patients to see doctors in fictional “ghost” clinics or double booking appointment times, which often resulted in the veteran going unseen.
It got so bad at the Jackson hospital that the Drug Enforcement Administration suspended prescription-writing authority for some of the staff at the facility.
The whistleblowers continue to investigate and report VA issues and yet there have been no immediate solutions offered. But hey the proposed Senate bill includes the construction of a new VA care facility in Hawaii and perhaps as many as 37 more new locations CONUS at a cost of $500 million. Oh, so more places and more money spent but no real method of fighting past the fraudulent paperwork, the secret lists or frankly the smell of disease, gangrene and death?
The outrage must continue and be placed at the feet of the White House and the two stewards of the White House, Sanders and Reid.
