Why Did POTUS Lie to Veterans?

AP FACT CHECK: President Trump’s phantom VA reform claims
The Associated Press
By HOPE YEN
July 27, 2017

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump paints a rosy picture of an improved Department of Veterans Affairs under his watch where accessing electronic medical records is “so easy and so good” and health care is freely available without any delays. The problem: It’s not true.

President Donald Trump speaks at the Covelli Centre, Tuesday, July 25, 2017, in Youngstown, Ohio. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

At a campaign-style event in Ohio this week, Trump’s claims of progress were so overstated that even his own VA secretary, David Shulkin — who stood right next to him — would have to disagree.

“Since my first day in office, we’ve taken one action after another to make sure that our veterans get the care they so richly deserve,” Trump said.

But the multibillion-dollar IT initiative Trump cites has yet to be even budgeted, and an alternative program of private-sector care he describes is running out of money and needs reauthorization by Congress. Government auditors and whistleblowers say problems of long wait times and shoddy care persist. Some VA improvements happened before Trump took office.
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Wait times at Colorado VA facilities 

among worst in the nation, new data 

show

Two years after scandal broke, Denver is worse off than Phoenix was

Wait times for medical appointments at veterans facilities in eastern Colorado and the Denver area are among the worst in the nation, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs data show. Front Range veterans have seen little improvement in the three years since a national scandal erupted over the problem.

The average wait for a primary care appointment at just the Denver VA Medical Center has grown to more than 18 days as of July 1 — three times higher than those at the main VA facility in Phoenix, where the problem was first exposed in 2014, and nearly four times the national average.

The waiting period in Denver had been half of what it was in Phoenix, according to VA data released earlier this month.

Veteran: VA home care will be cut by July 31

In June, the VA announced that cuts to home care would be on hold, but Rosenstock said his family was notified Wednesday that his care would be cut by Monday. 

"This is the only thing I ever asked for," Rosenstock said.

Rosenstock says he needs help cooking, showering and even walking at times.
"Not only have I been receiving it, but I need it. I'm not in a stage of production or getting money or anything else," Rosenstock said. "I mean what I have received, I feel I've earned and what's more, I'm proud to have served."

Plus the three veterans who committed suicide at different VA hospitals.

Retired General McChrystal Reminds POTUS of Responsibility

Gen. McChrystal and former Navy SEAL on Afghanistan and leadership
CBS NEWS
June 15, 2017

The Trump administration may increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. This week, Defense Secretary James Mattis was granted authority to set those troop levels.

Asked about Mattis' new authority, retired four-star Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who commanded American and international forces in Afghanistan in 2009-2010, said it's "a good thing to empower subordinates who are closest to the problem to make decisions."

"But you don't abrogate responsibility," McChrystal said Thursday on "CBS This Morning." "So the president of the United States still has responsibility for those decisions, and the American people ultimately still have ownership of those decisions. … They may not agree going in, but when the policy is set, we all have the resolve to follow through."

McChrystal also said "it's hard to say" what the appropriate number of troops should be in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has once again been gaining ground.

"I'd certainly defer to what Jim Mattis and [Gen.] Mick Nicholson on the ground are recommending," McChrystal said. "But the question I think we need to ask ourselves is, if we send more troops and that doesn't solve the problem or make the change we hope, what will we do then? And that's a question that the nation needs to ask itself about its long-term aims and objectives in Afghanistan and what we're willing to devote to achieve it."

McChrystal served as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command and was tasked with re-imagining the battlefields of the Middle East. McChrystal outlined how he did it in his 2015 bestseller, "Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World."
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USA still selling out veterans as if it is good for them?

It is about time that reporters actually took all of this as seriously as veterans deserve from them...and this "grateful nation" when it comes to how we repay them.

First, if you heard that veterans want to be able to go to private providers of their healthcare, there are two sides to that. One is, if they live in a rural area, they have to travel for hours to go to a VA Hospital. The other factor is that Congress never fixed the problems that have been plaguing veterans since the Revolutionary War. Congress? Yes, because they write the rules and the checks to pay for what veterans get after they were willing to pay with their lives for what Congress asked them to do.

Secondly, if you think putting veterans into the mess the rest of us deal with in the private sector is a good thing, then you are part of the reason they never got what they deserved from us. When was any of this acceptable to us?

Veterans Affairs secretary: "No way" administration will privatize VA
CBS News
April 22, 2017

Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin reiterated that President Donald Trump’s administration is “in no way” trying to privatize the VA, after Mr. Trump earlier this week signed a law extending private care options for veterans.

“In no way are we seeking to privatize the VA,” Shulkin said Saturday on “CBS This Morning,” adding that the VA needs to work “closer” with the private sector to use an “integrated” approach to veteran care.

Shulkin said when he took office that he was against privatizing the VA, a stance that stirred fears from some conservatives that the Obama-era holdover would continue the status quo at the VA.

Shulkin’s latest remarks came two days after the president signed a law eliminating the August expiration date of a program born out of the 2014 VA wait time scandal. The new law allows enrolled veterans to see doctors in their communities instead of waiting for a VA appointment.

Shulkin wouldn’t reveal any details about a press conference Mr. Trump will hold next week about veterans issues, but said the news conference will cover the “tremendous progress” the VA has made.
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Members of Congress have been pushing to sell them out to the private sector for decades. Look it up beginning with Senator John McCain and how he ran for the Presidency in 2008.

POLITICS-US: McCain’s Plan to Privatise Veterans’ Health CareBy IPS CorrespondentsAnalysis by Aaron Glantz*SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 21 2008 (IPS) 

If John McCain is elected the next U.S. president, wounded veterans could be in for a world of hurt.
On the campaign trail, the Republican’s presumptive nominee has talked of a new mission for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and argued that veterans with non-combat medical problems should be given vouchers to receive care at private, for-profit hospitals – in other words, an end to the kind of universal health care the government has guaranteed veterans for generations.“We need to relieve the burden on the VA from routine health care,” McCain told the National Forum on Disability Issues last month. “If you have a routine health care need, take it wherever you want, whatever doctor or health care provider and get the treatment you need, while we at the VA focus our attention, our care, our love, on these grievous wounds of war.”The Republican senator argues that giving veterans a VA card that they can use at private doctors would shorten the long wait times many veterans face in seeing government doctors, who are nearly universally viewed as among the best in the world.

This is blowing smoke! The fact is only 20% of the veterans in this country use the VA for all their healthcare needs. If a veteran is 100% disabled, then the VA treats them for everything! They will bill another insurer if they have another plan for non-service connected care, like Medicare and Medicaid, but they still do it all.

"While about 40 percent of veterans get some health care from the VA, only about 20 percent of all veterans rely totally on the VA, according to a 2015 government survey of health and health care use."

But in the same article there was this, 

A recent study by the RAND Corporation found that “VA patients were more likely to receive recommended care” and “received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow up” than that delivered by other U.S. health care providers.Virtually all veterans groups oppose McCain’s plan. The Veterans of Foreign Wars’ national legislative director has said the VA card would “undermine the entire system”. 

Veterans pre-paid for their healthcare when they joined the military! Anything less than understanding that fact and honoring it is reprehensible. Taking credit for something that had nothing to do with who is on the job today is disgusting, almost as much as not holding any of them accountable!

None of the problems veterans face fighting for that commitment to be delivered on is new. For Heaven's sake! When members of Congress decided to reward private providers for donations to them, they started to kill off the VA. Hell, if the VA worked properly then every deserving veteran would want to go to the VA and they'd never be able to sell veterans out.

Congress controls all of it and they've been owing veterans an apology since 1946!

POTUS Not Meeting With Veterans Groups?

American Legion defends VA health care, still trying to meet with Trump
Stars and Stripes
Nikki Wentling
February 22, 2017

WASHINGTON — The American Legion is trying to arrange a meeting with President Donald Trump to discuss the importance of veterans service organizations, the group’s executive director said Wednesday.

American Legion officials stand to be recognized during Secretary of Veterans Affairs nominee Dr. David Shulkin's Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill, Feb. 1, 2017.
JOE GROMELSKI/STARS AND STRIPES

“It’s important that the president meets with us, and we’re working right now to set up a meeting,” American Legion Director Verna Jones said during an event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “We want to… make sure that he understands the value of [veterans service organizations], what we bring to this veteran space and what veterans need.”

Jones said she wants five other veterans organizations included in the meeting with Trump. Veterans of Foreign Wars, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Vietnam Veterans of America, American Veterans and Disabled American Veterans, along with the American Legion, are informally known in Washington as the “Big Six” and collectively represent approximately 5.6 million veterans.

The six groups attempted to obtain an in-person discussion with Trump in December before he selected a new Department of Veterans Affairs secretary, but they never had a meeting. Leaders of major veterans groups were not present when Trump held a listening session about the VA earlier this month with health care executives.
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Trump Dumped Veterans Groups For Marvel Comics?

Does he understand that Captain America is not a disabled veteran?

Trump held his first VA listening session without veterans advocates
Military Times
By: Leo Shane III
February 7, 2017

White House officials held their first listening session on problems with the Department of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday, but without inviting prominent members of the veterans community to the event.

Officials from the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans and the Veterans of Foreign Wars said they were not invited to the morning event and did not know about it until it was announced late Monday night, as part of the White House’s routine schedule outline.

Other prominent veterans groups were surprised Tuesday morning by news of the event, and unsure who was invited to take part in the discussion.

White House officials initially did not release any other details of the event, other than the meeting followed a similar listening session with President Trump and county sheriffs discussing local law enforcement issues. A press pool event to take pictures of the meeting was cancelled shortly before the veterans meeting began.

As news spread of the meeting, Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said White House officials told him the meeting was with health care executives, and that veterans groups would be invited for a similar session later.

In the afternoon, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer released a statement saying the meeting included Tiffany Smiley, the wife of a veteran who was blinded by a roadside bomb in Iraq, Isaac Perlmutter, chairman of Marvel Entertainment, and "health care experts" discussing "actions are necessary to improve health care access and quality for our heroic veterans."
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VoteVets Message to POTUS Hits Hard

Did this powerful message from a wounded war veteran spark Donald Trump's latest rant? 
Mirror UK 
Mike Smith 
February 6, 2017

“That’s not the America I sacrificed for. You want to be a legitimate President, sir? Then act like one.”

The Donald famously watches TV News in the morning - so this veterans' organisation knew just how to get a message to him. 

A hard-hitting message from a wounded Afghan War veteran might have sparked Donald Trump’s latest rant. The Donald famously starts each day in the White House early by sitting down and watching the TV news networks’ morning broadcasts. 

MSNBC’s show Morning Joe is reputedly among his favourites. So when VoteVets, a group representing military veterans wanted to get a message to him, they knew where to put it. An advert aired during this morning’s show featured an Afghanistan War Veteran - who the group have not named - doing squats with a very heavy looking barbell. read more here 

VoteVets: Act Like One VoteVets