but he comes off as a light weight as head of the VA. Sorry.

It's a matter of the Republicans (mostly) cutting the VA budget & then forming lynching parties when the consequences of their cuts become manifest.

Sure, people did bad things, but it's a pretty big system & it's not possible for the guy on top to police everything. How was he supposed to know about record destruction in NM, when the whole system was too monetarily strapped to even police itself?

This assault on him from the right wing is unacceptable.

Shinseki has held the post long enough - why was there no 'hair on fire' reaction? All he had to do was ask....

It has gone up every year since. There have been no cuts.

https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22897.pdf

Many things have happened, such as presumptive rulings on Agent Orange and new rules on PTSD evaluations, to bring in a lot of aging Vietnam vets (I am one such), and the incredible injuries sustained by the Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan vets have pretty much overwhelmed the system.

particularly when they oppose Bush administration actions.

Honor and kudos to the man for being against the war, but that does not absolve him of other issues.

n/t

" Yes and appear to have gotten worse under him. Yes and appear to have gotten worse under him"

...utter nonsense.

actually mean things are better? Is that really where you want to take this.

I am a vet that uses the VA in El Paso......Keep pissing down my leg and telling me it is raining.......

Sure, the fire marshal hasn't condemned any VA facilities for being overstuffed with paper in years, and the massive 2008 backlog has been cut in half. But the media's making a big deal out of it now, so it must be worse.

needing care. I saw the numbers a while back, and it basically is a situation where there was no way to ramp up staffing and facilities in time. Plus, the estimates the gov't used for vets needing care when they returned was low. In Phoenix, near Surprise where my father lived they built one of the VA "storefronts" and that relieved a lot of the bottleneck, but they had to build it and staff it. The VA has a hard time staffing too because VA employees are treated like $hit by Congress and the gov't. Overworked, underfunded and understaffed. There are myriad problems with the VA system, the biggest being underfunding, but in this case the biggest culprit was a hundred thousand soldiers returning from overseas and flooding an already weak system.
We'll see if Shinseki dropped the ball, but until then why don't we give him the benefit of the doubt. When the right wing talking heads are screaming for something I know to look twice. He may have failed in his job, but i'm going to wait until I have enough accurate info to make that call.

They knew in 2009 that the wars were ending. The VA received increases in funding in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 and hired more people in that time frame. At the same time, the attrition rate for the military barely upticked. So how do you square the circle of your argument with this information?

And let's not get into the malpractice suits which have little to with funding and a lot to do with a VA work force that seems to not care.

I am a recently retired vet in El Paso and the VA facility here is a joke. I travel to Tucson to receive me VA care.

sick those people are, and what they need in the way of services. There was a huge uptick in people who needed the greatest amount of care. Veterans more than 50% disabled. Also, with more disabled vets returning there is the additional claims processing and administrative work. Basically, the returning service members were the straw that broke the VA's back. They are also dealing with an aging VA population that is in need of more care than previous years.

I looked up the numbers and what I could find was a multi-year graph so I used the last 5 years which were 2007-2012 (published in 2013). Of the basic services, here is the increase in cost/utilization of benefits.

2007-2012 34% increase in outpatient visits, which makes for an extra 21.3 MILLION outpatient visits
2007/2012 Number of people eligible for disability compensation up 24%
Cost of disability compensation up 57% (much greater number are more than 50% disabled)
2007-2012 healthcare expenditures up 45% with an extra one-half million patients
http://www.va.gov/vetdata/docs/QuickFacts/Utilization_trends_2012.pdf

You said that the VA budget was increased, but that wasn't so much hiring extra workers or improving facilities. From 2009 Fact sheet:
VA's fiscal year 2009 spending is projected to be approximately $93.4 billion, including $40
billion for health care, $46.9 billion for benefits, and $230 million for the national cemetery
system. This is more than a 7 percent increase from the department’s $87.6 billion budget for
fiscal year 2009.
So basically, for fiscal year 2009 a 7% increase in their budget did nothing more than help them break even, without adding any staff or facilities.

Something interesting I read:

The responsibility to care for veterans, spouses, survivors and dependents can last a long time.
Two children of Civil War veterans still draw VA benefits. About 184 children and widows of
Spanish-American War veterans still receive VA compensation or pensions.

are the answer. Why should the U.S. government continuing trying to run a parallel medical system? Use what there is where vets' health is concerned.

Some context for the current situation:

[url]http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/who-really-broke-veterans-affairs-20140520[/url]

The administration made it easier for veterans to get compensation for both post-traumatic stress disorder and exposure to Agent Orange—a Vietnam War-era defoliant now tied to a long list of neurological disorders. Those moves extended help to long-suffering veterans, but they weren't matched by the VA reforms needed to adequately address the new claims. Agent Orange alone took up 37 percent of the Veterans Benefits Administration's claims-processing resources nationally from October 2010 to March 2012, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

And as claims soared during Obama's first years in office, so did wait times. In 2009, there were about 423,000 claims at the VA, with 150,000 claims pending for more than four months (the official wait time it takes a claim to be considered "backlogged&quot . By 2012, claims had exploded to more than 883,000—and 586,540 of those sat on the VA's backlog list.

The administration did request—and get from Congress—additional funding for the department. The VA's budget totaled $100 billion in 2009. In 2014, it was up to $154 billion. But that money doesn't instantly transfer into an expanded capacity to meet veterans' needs: It takes approximately two years to fully train a claims worker; the blame for the staff crunch doesn't rest on Obama's shoulders alone.



Long before Twitter people were reading headlines and reacting. That is not a recipe for understanding what the hell is going on.

That's my issue after one two many brushes with IED's and IDF. And my dad is getting his Agent Orange claims taken care of, so I do understand. But that does not excuse Shinseki.

The backlog problems go back years, and moreover the standards for claims in Agent Orange and PTSD cases were changed during this administration. Hence the need for more staff to process more people.

On top of that, when Shinseki came in the VA was still paper-based.

[url]http://nation.time.com/2013/06/03/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-va-backlog/[/url]

2. Expanding eligibility for veterans affected by PTSD and Agent Orange more than doubled the claims backlog.

As if the paper weren’t problem enough, Shinseki and his staff soon learned that thousands of Vietnam War veterans—many with whom he likely served—had been barred from claiming disability benefits for conditions related to their exposure to the toxic defoliant Agent Orange.

He also learned that when a veteran claimed post-traumatic stress related to time in combat, the veteran was obligated to prove that a specific stressor—an event at a certain time and place—had caused the condition. But because many returning veterans weren’t able to prove a specific instance had caused their sleepless nights, irritability, and hyper-vigilance, they were being denied disability benefits.

Shinseki was troubled by both of these. He viewed them as unfair and unjust. So he took action in late 2009, announcing expanded eligibility for those affected by both combat PTSD and Agent Orange.

For veteran groups and, more importantly, the veterans in those categories, it was a long-awaited victory. For the backlog, however, the impact was severe once VA began adjudicating these “presumptive” claims.

this is all about PBO......

Forest for the trees from some of you...........

the Vet's bill and are now blaming the President's Vet Affair Sec, Shinseki.. who btw Obama is giving his full support.

"Forest for the trees from some of you..........."

Because no one should ever be held accountable for problems.

...to find the solution for all the problems Bush pre-emptive war policies created for the VA system.

...Cha! I am glad President Obama took the actions he did todayAND that he stood with Gen. Shinseki. I wish people could realize just how profoundly huge some of these problems are. They won't be fixed over night. But that doesn't mean we should sack the very people doing the work.

I actually see this VA 'scandal' as a GOP ploy similar to the ACA...GOP led states not implementing VA policy as Obama Adm. (Shinseki) directs and then blaming President Obama for the problems they themselves created. Just like they did with Obamacare. Only now they are using our veterans. Slimy...

by Shinseki, too.



P.S. gop called for Kathleen Sebelius' head too.

...is one smart cookie! .

information to work with, too.

feel differently.

Weird how you keep ignoring these two Congressmen.

And last time I checked the lying isn't a funding issue. Unless you want to try and tell me that the lying by VA officials was about money. Is the VA underfunded? Yep, you won't get an argument from me about that. But I can hold the Repukes accountable through the ballot box which is the mechanism to replace them and I can try to hold Shinseki accountable through resignation the mechanism for appointed individuals.

It's funny, nobody wants to talk about two of our own party, one a member of the CBC demanding Shinseki's resignation. I expect those two to be joined by more Democrats of good conscience in the next few days. Especially when the St Louis, Miami and Dallas stories hit between now and Memorial Day. Things are about to get a lot worse on this subject.

I do know Pres Obama and I know those on DU whom I respect..

Skidmore..

"Back during the Bush years, the husband of a friend of mine worked on the staff at a VA hospital. He witnessed similar shenanigans used with psychiatric patients there. He reported it and his fellow docs did everything under the sun to squeeze him out of his job to the point that he was in great distress himself. This sort of duplicitous gaming has been going on for years in the VA. It does not surprise me that Shinseki was unaware. We have seen it surface from time to time. Remember the mess with mold growing in the hospitals? The VA system is overtaxed in the extreme right now. It is underfunded, understaffed, and the patient rosters are filled to the max. This is a systemic issue and it needs to be addressed by the Congress by more than grandstanding and speechifying."

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4983723

CatWoman..

"I think what was going on was a "local" problem

things have improved greatly at the VA since Shinseki took over.

The department is far from perfect, but services are so much better than under the previous administration.

I'm about giving the man a chance.

If, however, he was involved in the shenanigans, then of course he should go.

But remember the VA and ALL govt. services have had to endure severe budget cuts.

Personally I blame the people holding the purse strings. They would like nothing more than to privatize the VA -- a method to their madness. Remember Walter Reed?"

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4984146

with your ignorant campaign to get Eric Shinseki fired.

I am not campaigning for anything. I haven't had to post multiple threads. I'll give BOG credit, they are great at spamming the board with volume. Besides, I imagine PBO will do the right thing and throw the guy out on his ass before too much longer.

Whine! Mewl! Whine! Mewl! Just look at all those overpayments that are never corrected! I know, we'll just keep slashing funding for SSA and cut from their payroll more and more of the people whose job it is to correct those errors.

before there has been any investigation.

That way we can move on to the next talking point instead of punishing the people who actually did wrong.

If we're lucky, we'll promote the people actually responsible when we fill positions after taking that scalp!

...

until the investigation is complete. Then fire him.

is not responsible? That it was a localized problem? Would you still call for his firing?

And, thank you sir/ma'am for your lifetime of service.

the management is often replaced when things go wrong. Ask the military.....if a unit screws up the Commander is relieved.

This isn't a management problem. It's a political problem.

The VA is the country's only "single-payer" system. And Republicans need to make sure it sucks. Otherwise, the VA becomes a positive example for single-payer advocates.

So the Republicans have been massively under-funding the VA for more than a decade. Not surprisingly, that massive under funding has lead to problems. But they continue to under-fund it because they have to destroy it.

Firing Shinseki gives Republicans the cover they need. If Shinseki is fired, then it was his fault and not the Republican's massive under-funding. That's why the Republicans are shouting for him to be fired right now.

Republicans need him to be labeled with the blame so that the media moves on from the story before people start talking about funding.

I want an investigation first.

But this is about so much more than under funding. That is a huge issue, but there is more going on here. The genie is nearly out of the bottle, if this blows up like I think it might, it is going to sting. I work in the military (recently retired, now a defense contractor) I use the VA and am around a lot of vets, the funding hurts, and it hurts badly, but there is a lot more going on on an institutional basis. The drugs issue alone is looming now. Investigating and then firing Shinseki absolves PBO of a lot of this stuff coming down the pipe.

And Republicans can claim it was all Shinseki and not their funding.

people publishing memos instructing on how to lie about appointments, and the big one yet to drop, lying and covering up unneccessary surgeries that lead to deaths have nothing to do with funding. Two of those three are going to hit the airwaves in the next week. The VGN (Veteran Grapevine Network) is talking about all three in some chat rooms.

there is a culture of corruption in the VA that has increased over the last decade. That is going to be the outrage.

Funding problems lead directly to the lying about appointments - they were covering for delays caused by the lack of capacity that was caused by the lack of funding.

The other problems were also due to funding - poor funding means worse pay. Which means worse workers who do things like supplement their income by selling drugs or unnecessary surgeries.

don't you?

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2014/05/20/miami-va-whistleblower-exposes-drug-dealing-theft-abuse/


And since we are on the topic. What years was funding cut and what were the amounts?

Because a google search shows me a 50 BILLION dollar increase in the VA budget since PBO came to office.

The last year the VA budget went down was in 1994 (Clinton and a Democratic Congress). It has gone up ever since.

https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22897.pdf

As to your alllegation that the veteran population has increased 100% since 2008 the VA says it is going down.

http://www.va.gov/vetdata/docs/quickfacts/Population_slideshow.pdf

The number of veteran patients has gone from 5.2 million in 2008 to 5.6 million. Not exactly a 100% increase.

http://www.va.gov/vetdata/docs/quickfacts/Utilization_trends_2012.pdf

You give me "a source on Maddow". I'll stick to the facts.

How 'bout this figure:
The Bereavement Counseling hotline is 1-202-461-6530
http://www.va.gov/opa/publications/benefits_book/benefits_contacts.asp

Ah-HA!!!! Got you with my facts!!!

But to return to a less sarcastic conversation, you are literally arguing that the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have not significantly increased the load on the VA. Might wanna rethink that.

You are also arguing that despite the fact that Congress has not met VA's funding request for decades, that the VA is adequately funded.

the right wing radio gods.

too often dem reps often react as if those idiot made-to-order constituencies are legitimate

this could be avoided if the dem party monitored what was going on on talk radio.

It couldn't be because he has a conscience. Barrow is from a huge military district.......Scott is from a D+10 district, he is hardly getting swamped with brain dead repukes. Try again.

By the way Scott normally wins by nearly 40 points.......Give me a fucking break

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia's_13th_congressional_district

it's a talk radio state! and he's black! of course they're calling him and screaming at his staff.

none of his dem voters are calling him- it's the same teabaggers that screamed about public option- as cued up by the talk radio gods

give me a fucking break

We are in agreement that those names have done damage to the VA. But it isn't all about funding. And Shinseki has a job for now, he better pray the worst has past or PBO will have to dump him.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-va-investigation-20140522-story.html

Is the idea that shinseki should be canned wrong because it's a flawed idea on its own, or is it only wrong because Republicans are for it?

to put those Republicon assholes out on their asses at the ballot box and throw out the ineffectual Shinseki through resignation. Both are the approved method for replacing people in their positions. Why is it a bad thing to want accountability of Shinseki and then work our asses off to get Democrats elected?

There should be someone! The president would be best or Biden someone should already be fighting back at this! But no one will ... and almost too late.

for his courage in opposing Bush. He paid the price for his courage, which is why I was happy when he was appointed by Obama, sort of a slap in the face to Cheney et al.

I am sure they are out to get him, that is who they are, petty, cruel and evil.

So yes, people should NOT support his dismissal. Bush would not fire his Generals even when they were implicated in torture, in fact to spite those who were demanding such dismissals, airc, he had a habit of giving his torturing generals Medals.

his corrupt people, PBO should do the same?

...of veterans long before GWB started the Iraq War. Bush made it untenable by increasing the number of veterans in the system...Iraq War Veterans...needlessly.

Bush didn't plan or budget for the needs of these veterans, when going to war (safety tools body armor) or after the war (PTSD rehab medical care). THAT is what Shinseki is tasked to fix. And the GOP is trying to hang it on the Obama Administration. That's unconscionable.

when doing so was a dangerous to do and he paid a price for it. I have not been a fan of many of Obama's nominations, but this was one I completely supported as we all know how the Bush gang had a way of destroying anyone with any kind of ethics and/or the courage to oppose them.

I do not know all the details about this case, I do remember the Walter Reed scandal so this problem is ongoing, as we know, Bush and his gang of war profiteers were never too concerned about the troops, not wanting their profits to be spent on the troops if they could help it.

Considering what I already know of Shinseki I will wait to see what caused yet another example of how we actually 'support the troops'.

I am very skeptical about the calls for him to resign when we have no clue what or who was responsible. I would find it very hard to believe that a man who cared enough about the troops not to want to send them to fight unnecessary wars, and risked his career to speak out suddenly turned into someone who would engage in any kind of behavior that is harmful to them.

on most important issues.

I will study it, rethink it, and then offer another opinion. I'm sure I'm not alone in sometimes throwing out an opinion without having all of the facts. Whether I agree or not is incumbent on those facts, but I will take a second look and stop for a second.

I think most of us would benefit from doing that.

how that works

shameful

or, at least, that is my first impression of this situation.

or not.
please enlighten me

...

Does not absolve him of his incompetence.

GOP fights improving a system every step of the way, implements changes poorly so the system fails, and then attacks the member of the Obama Administration who was working to improve the system.

to prevent people from going to certain govt places because the asshole didn't want to fund it.

sides for too long.

IIRC many of us pointed out that the Bush/Cheney wars were going to be an economic and humanitarian disaster. But because the serious people in the beltway chose, and still choose, to avoid how wrong we as a nation got that; we're left to deal with an unfunded, and usually, largely, unrecognized, liability.

Somehow the Republicans got our party to not talk about this so much. Someday, maybe, we'll see in the news a discussion about the hundreds of thousands of refugees from Iraq, and all the other brutal fallout from our invasion. Maybe we'll see that and maybe we'll have a discussion about how little we've done for those people.

A lot of rich people elected their guy, and now their new tools are working hard to see to it they avoid the costs of his disasters.

Shame on them all, and we need to call them out on it.

On this, he was 100% on target. The way in which this could have been seen as antiwar was if - presented with must higher costs estimates (definitely not it would pay for itself), would there have been enough power to stop Bush?

I suspect that in early 2003, the country was not yet concerned with costs in either lives or dollars and likely could not be awaken on that. In 2003, the Congress passed the second Bush tax cut bill -- clearly we were not worried about the huge debt this would cost. The message also would not have made clear that the US would lose so many soldiers.

I remember Kerry quoting Shinsecki often in 2003 and 2004 - arguing that (among other things like no going to war unless it was a last resort (which this NEVER met)), you don't go to war without a plan to win the peace.

It is better to credit him with something that he very clearly did -- he spoke out that the planning was not adequate for the time when the government fell. Had he been listened to, it is possible that one of two things could have happened. 1) The momentum to war could have falter enough to have been stopped. 2) Rumsfeld could have responded by increasing the number of soldiers committed - something that few here would have thought the right thing to do.

...he talked about General Shinseki arguing for more troops and saying how the Bush Administration "chastised" him for saying that. Turned out Shinseki was correct and should have been listened to. GWBUSH and company never really listened to anyone that didn't agree with what they had already decided to do...

"We should defend him because he's one of our own" is not just the first step on a slippery slope, it's a long way down it.

I don't know what wrongdoing Shinseki is accused of, or if he's guilty of it; by all means defend his case on its merits.

But having done something good in the past should not give a pass to accusations of wrongdoing.

1- I think he's awesome for opposing the Iraq war. He can claim that honor forever and feel proud for that.

2- The Republicans are after him for political gain, that's obvious.

3- I have not watched the Dem. rep. video. I'll go watch it now. eta01: Ok, watched the video. Of course Shinseki needs to clean up the mess. Resigning is overkill. I disagree with the Representative.

4- If there is rock-solid proof that Shinseki knew of the illegal/immoral conduct, then yes, of course, he needs to go. Otherwise, you can't hold him accountable for what some paper-pusher does 2000 miles away. Does he need to fix the problems ? Absolutely. However, until and unless there is rock-solid proof connecting him personally to the problems, he should stay.