VA Medical System in Shambles, Veterans Groups Say

Source: Fox News

Amid growing controversy over procedures that exposed 10,000 veterans to the AIDS and hepatitis viruses, the Department of Veterans Affairs is now bracing against news that one of its facilities in Pennsylvania gave botched radiation treatments to nearly 100 cancer patients.

Veterans groups and lawmakers say VA hospitals have permitted these violations because federal regulations allow doctors to work with little outside scrutiny. They say the VA health system, with its under-funded hospitals and overworked doctors, is showing signs of an "institutional breakdown," in the words of one congressman.

An official with the American Legion who visits and inspects VA health centers said complacency, poor funding and little oversight led to the violations that failed the cancer patients in Philadelphia and possibly infected 53 veterans with hepatitis and HIV from unsterilized equipment at three VA health centers in Florida, Tennessee and Georgia.

"Lack of inspections, lack of transparency" were likely to blame, said Joe Wilson, deputy director of the Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Commission for the American Legion, who testified before Congress this month on transparency problems in a budgeting arm of the VA.



Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/24/va-medical-shambles-veterans-groups-say/

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Doesn't look good for VA. Now all the republicans will be coming out of the woodwork to say this is the reason we should not have Universal healthcare.

fox "news" does not fit that description, and this is a right-wing propaganda piece posted by someone with 12 posts.

:wtf:

If the poster was trying to slander Obama, it didn't work. The full story puts the blame on the GOP administration that just vacated the executive branch.

Guys who cares what administration it happened under. This is a gov't healthcare system that has failed. How do we explain this one when trying to push for universal care?

There was no oversight, no funding, and no standards.

Christ, if you're going to be a fucking shill for rightwing bullshit, you really shouldn't use a trowel.

You out yourself when you pull that crap.

Have you even read the DU rules? Hmmmmm?

Wowa calm down buddy. I'm on your side.

And it wasn't the Obama administration that did it, either.

You are profoundly un-subtle.

I am ashamed to even be associated with someone like you. I am not pretending to be anyone. I am who I am.

to the military, never have been.

And for the record, it happened under AWOL Bush.

Obama just gave the VA more money than it's gotten in 30 YEARS.

The head of the American Legion is a chickenshit repuke shill who LIED about being in combat in Vietnam.

The sorry motherfucker never squawked about jack shit when his hero AWOL Bush was in charge.

I stopped paying my AL dues a long time ago.

Doesn't matter who is reporting it in this case. It happened. The VA botched radiation treatments to nearly 100 cancer patients. I am not trying to post any propgaganda. I am posting something that is not good news for a case for Universal care

The VA failed because the Republicans in power under Bush wanted the VA to fail. They wanted the government to fail; they wanted to shrink it so much that it would drown in a bathtub, to use Grover Norquist's :puke: analogy.

To this end, they cut funding and neglected federal agencies to the point where they were all but guaranteed to fail, fulfilling a self-fulfilling prophecy of gubmint failure. You better believe the public would not suffer this kind of crap with UHC. Any politician that underfunded the health system with UHC to the degree that the VA has been underfunded and starved as necessary resources would be run out of DC very quickly. The public would react to neglect of UHC with much the same reaction as they would if Treasury started bouncing Social Security checks.

Social Security is a shining example of what the government can do RIGHT. Not even Bush's cronies managed to fuck that up (though believe me, they tried).

You yourself tried to mitigate the association with the Bush administration. Keep digging the hole.

When did they botch that radiation? During the BUSH YEARS. When did all these fuckups happen? During the BUSH years.

It DOES matter when it happened. Rick Shinseki is working doubletime trying to fix all the clusterfucks that Bush created.

Go back to Robinsonville.

n/t

I agree this is definitely a FOX hit job on universal healthcare. Anecdotal evidence of medical mistakes is irrelevant if it's not put in the context of mistakes made across the healthcare spectrum.

The only one I see here is the American Legion. I know in my area the American Legion is very, very conservative and loved Bush.

Its counter part in past history is a reunion of fellows who served in the Waffen SS

Been to one of their meetings once and heard most of the following epithets to describe the "enemy" in Bush's latest wet dream in the desert. Such as hearing on the efforts to kill sand niggers, camel jockeys, rag heads, sand monkeys, dot heads etc.

Even if these things had happened yesterday, we're operating under his VA system.

first-rate. I agree that Republicans should not be allowed anywhere near publicly-run services.

edit for tpyo.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

In fact, I'd say it is the only few words in that entire column that matter at all.

Simple answer: Properly fund the VA Med system and provide oversight.

Best answer: Universal Health Care for all, including our abused veterans, who gave so much but get so little.

Republican answer: "It don't work, tear it down!"

When my sister worked at Bay Pine VA Hospital in St. Pete in the late 60s, it was poorly funded. Nothing really changed over the years except that since the Gulf War younger and more veterans need more care.

The basic VA system is sound, otherwise it would not have survived through all the years of neglect. But if this country is going to fund wars we need to take care of our men and women we send to fight. The Republicans seem to have a disconnect with this fact.

AWOL Bush underfunded it for years but the phony combat vet repuke head of the American legion never screeched about that.

It took RATS IN WALTER REED hospital to get anyone's attention during AWOL Bush's neglect.

come out of the woodwork that vets should get choice and go wherever they are treated the best. That should end this abuse.

Faux has crapped out another lie. Veterans groups? They have one guy from the American Legion (not conservative is he?), who they don't give a full quote from, one guy named Jim Strickland who contributes to a site called vawatchdog.org (not even the owner of the site), a guy from Amvets who begins his quote by saying "Our feeling is that the quality of the care is excellent . . . ."

Then they quote a lawyer (whom they call a "litigator" because faux news viewers despise expert lawyers) who makes his living suing the VA who says: "They're generally under-funded ... and I think the interest of the doctors suffers to some degree . . . Generally speaking, the physicians that work at the VA work there because they have no interest in private health care, and in some situations are unable to find jobs in private industry."

Conservative? What the hell do you think. So, the veterans groups turn out to be maybe the American Legion, a guy named Jim, a lawyer who makes his living suing the VA. Meanwhile, the guy with Amvets says the system is excellent, but like anything, could always use improvement. In other words, Faux came up with the story, and then found a few quotes it could either use or twist to fit the story.

I find it impossible to believe that hospitals in my area are 12 years old on average. I think with the VA he means "facilities" as being hospitals, and "facilities" for the private sector means labs, medstops and radiology companies.

This story fails the smell test.