UPDATE::VA Leaves Deceased Veterans to Rot in Morgue! (figure of speech)

http://www.conservative-daily.com/2014/05/26/4707/

Breaking: VA Leaves Deceased Veterans to Rot in Morgue!
Posted on May 26 2014 by Conservative Daily

Dear Conservative,


For the past few weeks, the Obama administration has been the focus of
attention as allegations of widespread corruption within the Department
of Veterans Affairs continue to surface.


All across the United States, employees in VA hospitals are accused of
cooking the books and altering medical records to make the hospitals
appear to be better than they actually were. Meanwhile, our military
veterans were forced to languish in endless waiting lists, many of whom
died while waiting to see a doctor for the first time.


President Obama was briefed on this back in 2008 and even though he
pledged that reforming the VA would be one of the main focuses of his
presidency, nothing was ever done to fix these problems. In the past
week, the VA has approved veterans using private medical facilities in
situations with exceptionally long VA backlogs, a crushing blow to those
who support government-run healthcare.


These are baby-steps forward and there is nothing that can be done to
bring back those who perished as a direct result from this scandal. But
the VA seems to be moving in the right direction. That is, until I
learned of another disgusting 'scandal' that made me absolutely sick to
my stomach.


Today is Memorial Day. This is the day where we all celebrate the
sacrifices made by so many veterans who fought and died to protect our
way of life. While it is certainly nice to thank active duty military
personnel or veterans for their service, this day is specifically
devoted to honoring those who sacrificed themselves for the preservation
of this great country.


A story coming out of California alleges that the VA left dozens of deceased veterans to rot
in the county morgue for over a year without them ever receiving a
burial. Many of these deceased veterans had been in the morgue so long
that County officials didn’t know their names and were racing to find
ways to identify them. For the past year and a half, there have been
more than SIXTY deceased veterans who were left to rot at the LA County
Morgue.


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So not only do VA employees drop the ball when it comes to processing
sick veterans, but the Department can’t even deal with the backlog of
deceased veterans?! This is absolutely deplorable and the fact that the
VA allowed this to happen proves that even in death, the Department of
Veterans Affairs simply cannot take care of our vets!


Tell
Congress that our military veterans deserve to be honored, not left to
rot anonymously in a morgue! Whoever is responsible for this scandal
must be punished!


The law on this is simple: Military veterans who pass away without any
family or friends to manage the services must still receive a burial.
This law is designed for exactly these circumstances. If a veteran
passes away and no one claims the body, they still must receive a proper
burial. The premise of 'no man left behind' carries on even in death…


This is the least that we can do, as a country, for those men and women who sacrifice so much to preserve our way of life!


But for the dozens of veterans left to rot in the LA County Morgue, the
system failed them. These deceased veterans went a year and a half
without receiving a proper burial, apparently because the VA couldn't be
bothered checking up to see if their bodies were ready.


That's what it ultimately comes down to: an employee picking up the
phone and calling for an update. And the VA couldn't even be bothered to
do that!


Our veterans deserve more, both in life and death, than what the VA is
currently giving them. At every level, the Department of Veterans
Affairs is utterly broken. From the nurses cooking the books in the
hospitals, all the way up to Secretary Shinseki himself, the corruption
and negligence touches everyone connected to the VA!


On this Memorial Day, more than ever, we must fight to ensure that our
nation's heroes receive the medical care and burial rights that they
have EARNED! 


They fought for our rights, now it is time to turn around and fight for theirs! 


You should be mad as hell about this! I know I am!


The media only began covering the VA scandal because brave patriots
like YOU let their voices be heard. Now with this news of deceased
veterans being left to rot in county morgues, we absolutely must force
our representatives to hold those who allowed this to happen
accountable!


Just as in the beginning of the VA scandal there was only one affected
hospital, I suspect that if we turn over a few stones, we’ll find that
across the country, deceased veterans are being denied burial rights
because of bureaucratic incompetence.


Memorial Day is about honoring those veterans who sacrificed life and
limb to protect this great country. The news coming out of LA County
leaves me mortified and ashamed at just how the VA has let our veterans
down. They deserve more than what they were given, all of our veterans
deserve more, and I urge you to join me in raising our voices to DEMAND
that Congress stop this gross negligence and protect our vets!


This must end!


Tell
Congress that our military veterans deserve to be honored, not left to
rot anonymously in a morgue! Whoever is responsible for this scandal
must be punished!


Sincerely,


Joe Otto


Conservative Daily

http://lonelyconservative.com/2014/05/unions-try-to-block-veterans-from-receiving-civilian-care/


health care, unions, veterans

Unions Try To Block Veterans From Receiving Civilian Care

by Lonely Conservative • May 27, 2014 • 1 Comment

Former New York Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey brings up an aspect of the crisis at the Department of Veterans Affairs that has been overlooked (or ignored) by the media and politicians as they call for endless investigations into why veterans are dying waiting for care. The unions representing VA employees don’t want veterans to receive civilian medical care under Medicare, which many veterans are eligible for.

Quote :

Encouraging vets on Medicare to use civilian care instead of the VA could cut the patient backlog at the VA by as much as half, solving a national crisis.
Almost half of vets are 65 or over, and nearly all vets using the VA have Medicare coverage.
Often, they’d be better off getting their bypass surgery and cancer operations at civilian hospitals that do higher volumes of these age-related procedures and have better survival rates, instead of sticking with the VA.
But the VA fails to tell them. The culprit is the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union that dominates the VA. For AFGE, the VA is a jobs program.

The union wants more patients, bigger VA budgets and more staff, never mind what ailing vets need.
Nine months ago, the VA rolled out a $9.3 billion program to refer vets needing specialists to civilian medical centers if the wait at their VA was too long or they lived too far away.
AFGE is fighting the program, even accusing VA executives of deliberately causing the backlog.

Read the whole thing, as there is much more. This is just one more reason why public employees should never have been allowed to unionize.

http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2014/05/21/obama-va-scandal/

Obama Complicit in VA Scandal
Published Wed, May 21, 2014 | Floyd Brown, Chief Political Analyst
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Veterans are the vanguard of American freedom. They’ve risked life and limb in the protection of our blessed nation, and most citizens believe they should be honored for their service. Who wouldn’t, frankly?

Well, the answer is the Obama-managed Department of Veterans Affairs, whose hospitals have been falsifying medical treatment records to ostensibly improve their wait times.

And thanks to an investigation by The Washington Times, we now know that the scandal goes straight to the top.

Barack Obama himself was briefed, yet he never lifted a finger to help our veterans who were in need of care. Even for an administration that has caused more scandals than we can count, the Veterans Affairs scandal is completely outrageous.

A Colossal Failure
The Washington Times reported, “The Obama administration received clear notice more than five years ago that VA medical facilities were reporting inaccurate waiting times and experiencing scheduling failures that threatened to deny veterans timely healthcare.”

Meanwhile, VA officials told Obama, “This is not only a data integrity issue in which [Veterans Health Administration] reports unreliable performance data; it affects quality of care by delaying – and potentially denying – deserving veterans timely care.”

But Obama took no action.

The result? Needless death. In fact, at least 42 veterans’ deaths can be directly attributed to having care denied when it should have been provided. We’ve also learned that some veterans committed suicide rather than continue waiting for necessary care.

On Monday, FOX News reported on the matter: “Dr. Margaret Moxness, who says she was employed at the Huntington VA Medical Center in Charleston, West Virginia, from 2008 to 2010, told ‘Fox & Friends’ on Monday that she was told to delay treatment, even after she told supervisors they needed immediate care. She said at least two patients committed suicide while waiting for treatment between appointments.”

Not surprisingly, the Obama team is once again trying to shift blame.

Appearing on Face the Nation last Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough claimed that Obama “is madder than hell” over media reports that Veterans Affairs personnel were falsifying information about medical care delays.

McDonough went on to say Obama recently “deployed additional staff over to the Veterans Administration to dig into this, to find out if this is a series of isolated cases or whether this is a systemic issue that we need to address with wholesale reform.”

Based on McDonough’s comments alone, you’d think that Obama learned of the scandal at the same time as the rest of us… that he wasn’t knowledgeable prior, but once he learned what was happening, he quickly took action. Unfortunately, none of McDonough’s statements are true.

Obama knew.

Obama knew for at least five years.

And he did nothing as the veterans’ death toll mounted.

I decided to speak to a few members on the Hill, and they told me they plan to push back against the Obama administration’s lackadaisical attitude toward the veterans’ deaths.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said this morning, “The American people are frustrated, especially when those who have served our country in uniform have been treated the way they have, and God forbid, who have perished because of the mess at the VA.”

He concluded: “I will tell you I am disturbed by statements out of the White House that say that the president heard about this in the news. It is time for our president to come forward and to take responsibility for this – and to do the right thing by these veterans and begin to show that he actually cares about getting it straight.”

Your eyes on the Hill,

Floyd Brown