The only thing veterans have to fear...is Congress!

The only thing veterans have to fear...is Congress!
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 18, 2018
FOX News wanted to discuss how the Secretary of the VA has not reformed the VA fast enough. Well, while that is true, it is also true that none of the others managed to fix the VA when they were up against others trying to make sure it did not work right.

While the number of disabled and eligible veterans has grown, the VA is till short on doctors, therapist, nurses, claims processors and everyone else needed to treat our veterans properly. After all, they did pre-pay for their healthcare needs the day they joined the military.

Anyway, FOX said they wanted to interview groups willing to defend the latest Secretary in the hot seat, but they all declined. According to FOX the only one interested was from Concerned Veterans For America.

What Concerned Veterans For America folks do not tell you is that every Secretary of Department of Veterans Affairs has been subjected to all the blame since President Reagan made it a Cabinet level position and this article is still up on The New York Times going back to November 11, 1987.

"Under the Reagan Administration, some veterans have been required for the first time to pay a portion of the costs of their treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals. ''Some feel the V.A. is run now by the Office of Management and Budget,'' said Representative G. V. (Sonny) Montgomery, Democrat of Mississippi, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee."

And pay close attention to this part too,

The Veterans Administration has more than 240,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $27 billion. It would become the second largest Federal department in employment, behind the Defense Department. It spends more than $15 billion a year on benefits programs to veterans and their dependents, including pensions and compensation for injuries. 

According to the VA, this is in President Trump's budget request.

In the FY 2019 Budget, President Trump proposes a total of $198.6 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).  This request, an increase of $12.1 billion over 2018, will ensure the Nation’s Veterans receive high-quality health care and timely access to benefits and services.  The 2020 AA request includes $79.1 billion in discretionary funding for Medical Care including collections; and $121.3 billion in mandatory funding for Veterans benefits programs (Compensation and Pensions, Readjustment Benefits, and Veterans Insurance and Indemnities accounts).

The other thing they do not tell you is that Congress has had jurisdiction over the care of veterans since the first Committees were seated in 1946!


If the VA is still not able to meet the needs of our veterans, then blame them, and the others pushing to privatize the VA while refusing to admit killing it is what they wanted to do all along. You know, like Concerned Veterans of America.
Guess they don't want to mention that sending veterans into for profit healthcare providers has left them with this!
Fear of debt leaving veterans choosing death over the ER


UPDATE
Here is another image..

Members of the American Federation of Government Employees protest outside the Department of Veterans Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 13. Since a travel scandal broke on day later, VA Secretary David Shulkin has been under attack from outside critics questioning his ethics and internal rivals unhappy with his policy moves. (Leo Shane III/Staff)

Who is in charge at the Department of Veterans Affairs?

“Right now it doesn’t look like anyone is in charge,” said Paul Rieckhoff, chief executive officer of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “It looks like chaos. It’s brutal political trench warfare, and veterans are caught in the middle.”