'Corrosive culture' fueled by Congress hurt the VA

Two northwest Wisconsin VA clinics close over funding problems. VA is looking into several primary care options for more than 900 veterans who've been using the Hayward and Rice Lake clinics.

Heussner says Corporate Health and Wellness, the company under contract to run the clinics, was having difficulty meeting its financial obligations. But he says the company had never threaten to close down the clinics.

That was reported by Minnesota Public Radio in 2007.

'Corrosive culture,' weak leadership cripple VA, report says
CNN
By Ralph Ellis and John Crawley
Fri June 27, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Report on VA medical system stems from allegations of shortcomings
It cites "significant and chronic systemic failures"

Report on builds on alarming revelations over past several months

Report was conducted by Obama administration aide who assessed VA shortcomings

(CNN) -- The Veterans Affairs health care system needs to be overhauled because of unresponsive leadership and a "corrosive culture" that affects the delivery of medical care, said a report delivered Friday to President Barack Obama.

"It is clear that there are significant and chronic systemic failures that must be addressed by the leadership at VA," said the report prepared by Rob Nabors, who is Obama's deputy chief of staff and who the President dispatched to assess the situation at the troubled agency.

The VA, a massive bureaucracy with more than 300,000 full-time employees, is under fire over allegations of alarming shortcomings at its medical facilities. The controversy, as CNN first reported, involves delayed care with potentially fatal consequences in possibly dozens of cases.

Nabors and acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson met with Obama to discuss the findings.
read more here

Congress and veterans committing suicide not a topic from last year or a few years ago. This report was from 2007.

The hearing was prompted in part by a CBS news story in November on suicides in the veteran population that put last year’s number of veteran suicides at over 6,000. VA officials refuted that number, questioning its validity. But a VA Inspector General report released in May of 2007 found that as many as 5,000 veterans commit suicide a year—nearly 1,000 of whom are receiving VA care at the time.

Yet here we are with worse conditions for veterans and Congress will accept no responsibility of any of it. More veterans sought VA care after these old reports but the truth is, congress never intended to increase staffing to meet the rise in need.