Shinseki was blamed for what the congress failed to do

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 3, 2014

"The hospital in Marion, Ill., initially drew scrutiny over deaths connected to a single surgeon, but two federal reports found fault with five other doctors" after 29 VA patients died because of questionable or "substandard" care between 2006 and 2007. It was the same year the President of Vietnam Veterans of America, John Rowan, issued a statement, "The annual exercise of debating the merits of the President's proposed budget is flawed," and the VA budget was $3 Billion short of what was needed. It was around the same time the Dole Shalala Commission heard from Undersecretary of Veterans Affairs that "veterans suffering from mental health issues such as traumatic brain injury (TBI), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He said that VA expects to treat about 5,771,000 patients in 2009. Kussman also said that in April 2006, over 250,000 “unique” patients were waiting more than 30 days to receive their treatment but that as of January 2001, that figure has been reduced to just over 69,000." 

The director of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs Ricardo Randle said, “Since 2006, the number of claims has grown 15 percent. The amount of time it takes to make decisions on disability claims is two to three years. On an average, it takes four years to get an appeals decision.”

In Colorado "Hospital cutbacks spark outrage among veterans. The planned Aurora medical center would treat 500,000 in the Rocky Mountain region."

By July, the Department of Veterans Affairs had 621,000 veterans with "Backlog" claims. In New York alone there were 10,700 with 27% of the veterans waiting longer than six months. But at the same time all of this was going on, members of the House of Representatives were blocking bills to help veterans. Why? Because they wanted to pass drilling legislation.

The Republicans’ unsuccessful attempt to derail the veterans bill comes after President Bush threatened to veto the legislation over excessive spending on veterans and our troops and after Senate Republicans blocked the National Defense Authorization Act in the Senate over the same issue.

A few years later in 2012, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki talked about the need to take more action in this report from David Wood for the Huffington Post.

This new generation is posing an additional challenge for the VA: the 50,000 wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan. Along with those bearing the common wounds of war are the more severely injured, including roughly 15,000 who would have died on the battlefield in past wars, who are now being saved because of advanced and speedy medical intervention. Many of them are double or triple amputees or severely burned patients who will require intensive and lifelong care.

The younger generation of vets is also more diverse: The proportion of women veterans will double from about 6 percent of veterans in 2000 to 14.5 percent by 2035, the VA projects, requiring new expertise in dealing with women's health and sexual trauma issues.

More than 2.5 million young Americans have served in the past decade of wars, and apart from the normal flow of troops retiring from active duty into the veteran population, the military ranks will be thinned by about 88,000 additional military personnel because of projected budget cuts over the next decade. All this will put new demands on the VA.

Shinseki was blamed for what the congress failed to do for far too many years. Members of Congress were not really interested in fixing what was wrong.

The reports were all out there but no one did anything to fix what was wrong. It wasn't about one political side over another since we saw all this damage being done with Democrats in control of the House as well as what happened the majority of the time with Republicans in control. Now it seems that more heads are rolling with the news the VA Medical Inspector is retiring over "scathing report" on what went wrong since 2002.

The chief medical inspector for the Department of Veterans Affairs has retired, following a report that his office downplayed whistleblower complaints outlining serious problems at VA facilities across the country, acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson said Wednesday.

Dr. John R. Pierce had served as medical inspector since 2004 and was deputy medical inspector for two years before that.

So when exactly do members of Congress admit they were also to blame for what happened?