Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Obama Fails Veterans Again: VA Wait Lists As Bad As Ever

Accountability: A year ago, the VA scandal involving extreme wait times and cover-ups broke. President Obama pledged urgent reforms, and Congress gave him billions to fund them. But so far, nothing's changed.
On April 9, 2014, the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs announced its findings that several veterans had died waiting for treatment at the Phoenix VA Health Care System and that the organization had kept two sets of books to conceal the long waits.
Over time, the scandal spread, as chronic, systemic delays and attempts to hide them at other VA clinics came to light. By August, the head of the VA was canned, and Congress rushed through a $16.3 billion bill to fix the problem.
The day Obama signed that bill into law, he talked about how his administration was "moving ahead with urgent reforms," and "instituting a critical culture of accountability" at the VA.
He said that the administration was getting 215,000 vets off wait lists, the funding bill would "give the VA more of the resources that it needs" and the new law would let vets who couldn't get timely care through the VA "get the care they need someplace else."
Problem solved, right?
Not even close. Obama — and the mainstream press — may have moved on, but the VA that he promised to fix is as bad as ever.
An investigation by the Associated Press published this week found that "the number of patients facing long waits at VA facilities has not dropped at all." Not. At. All.
It found that the number of vets waiting between 30 and 60 days hasn't changed and that the number waiting more than 90 days to get an appointment "has nearly doubled."
Read the rest of this IBD Editorial HERE.

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