Thursday, April 16, 2015

Privatizing People's Served Responsibility, the VA, Again at Political Front & Center

The Veterans Administration is Not Socialized Medical Care, or the other many charges of the agency!! It's the People Served Responsibility and more then the Promises Made to the Very Few who serve them, especially in the flag waving poser patriotic wars and policies of!! Young men and women who give up their early years, as their peers move into higher education or the labor markets, to serve the Country and especially, right or wrong, the policies made by those that represent the people. As those served Refuse to Sacrifice as they Demand those serving them do, the families of as well, as they either ignore or outright deny, and that's just about PTS, the many issues because of the service to and sacrifice of the few who take the oaths to country and constitution!

Chris Hayes: "If you can run a deficit to go to war, you can run a deficit to take care of the people who fought it" In response to Republican, long ago lost as the party of Lincoln and not just as to us Veterans, opposition to expanding Veterans' benefits on fiscal grounds.

As we abandoned so quickly the missions and those sent to accomplish after 9/11 and invaded Iraq, with troops in harms way and that administration and rubber stamping conservative congresses were doing almost nothing for not only the Veterans but Military Personal and their families. While the Senior Senator of North Carolina was Majority, then Minority leader, on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and the VA was under Republican Executive Administration with two new wars started: Salisbury VA Medical Center Changes Still On the Table Despite Word of Delays:

December 15, 2008 - The VA announced yesterday that it would not implement any proposed changes to the Salisbury (Hefner) VA until 2013, leaving the facility as a fully operational medical center. While union officials applauded the work of Senator-elect Kay Hagan and Congressmen Mel Watt and Larry Kissell for fighting the proposed elimination of health care services at the hospital, they criticized the VA’s continued commitment to privatize the medical center.

And that wasn't the only, under financed under built under staffed under maintained, Veterans Facility in the Country looked at to privatize for Corporate bottom line profits and all the problems in the cash flush, at the top, private care industry! The Country gets much much more back, even when grossly under funded and would if built as promised, then they would Sacrifice to the few who've served them, from All that comes about through the Veterans Administration, as Sec McDonald briefly lays out in second video, always has been the case!! One reason why: Thousands of people across America don’t just talk about honoring Veterans; they walk the walk!!

That VA, W. G. (Bill) Hefner VA Medical Center - Salisbury, NC, has a National Cemetery on it's grounds also. And instead of 'privatizing' the Facility has gone through many much needed upgrades as well as some expansions, same for the cemetery, during the Obama administration and the Shinseki Veterans Administration, still ongoing when VA capital budget expenditures can and continuing under Sec McDonald. As the clinic in Charlotte was upgraded and now a new expanded one is being built for the many Veterans' in this area and surrounding, including northern South Carolina, area's. Like many facilities around the Country, including new and upgraded National Cemeteries during the past six years. Hoping that continues but it needs the Country to finally step up and uphold it's side of the contracts to those some 1% that have Sacrificed for them!!

"If military action is worth our troops’ blood, it should be worth our treasure, too — not just in the abstract, but in the form of a specific ante by every American." -Andrew Rosenthal 10 Feb. 2013

4/15/15 - VA threatened by conservative privatization push

Rachel Maddow shows how right wing groups have worked to create a political environment where the previously radical idea of privatizing veterans' health care can be presented as a viable alternative to the VA.

4/15/15 - VA chief cites improvements, vital role in US health care

Robert McDonald, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, talks with Rachel Maddow about the importance of the VA in the American health system, how the VA is improving after recent scandals, and political challenges from conservatives interested in privatization.

As to those who serve and from our wars and not yet veterans of, think Walter Reed!!

Under the Bush not only did the present have to contend with “Why in 2009 were we still using paper?” VA Assistant Secretary Tommy Sowers “When we came in, there was no plan to change that; we’ve been operating on a six month wait for over a decade.” 27 March 2013 but along with lost or stolen laptops from those veterans administration employee's, remember all the reports of, with vital veterans information within, they had all this:

Army Times Oct. 16, 2008 - VA claims found in piles to be shredded

CNN iReport October 25, 2008 - House Vets' Committee To Probe VA Shredder Scandal

Tampa Bay Times Oct 27, 2008 - Hundreds of VA documents improperly shredded, review finds {Tampa Bay Times search page and series of articles}

CBS News February 11, 2009 - Veterans' Claims Found in Shredder Bins

And more disturbing in relation to even before and through the early years of the Afghanistan, quickly abandoned missions of, and Iraq occupations, this:

ProPublica and The Seattle Times Nov. 9, 2012 - Lost to History: Missing War Records Complicate Benefit Claims by Iraq, Afghanistan Veterans
"DeLara's case is part of a much larger problem that has plagued the U.S. military since the 1990 Gulf War: a failure to create and maintain the types of field records that have documented American conflicts since the Revolutionary War."

Part Two: A Son Lost in Iraq, but Where Is the Casualty Report?

Army Says War Records Gap Is Real, Launches Recovery Effort

3/27/15 - U.S. Nerve Gas Hit Our Own Troops in Iraq
"During and immediately after the first Gulf War, more than 200,000 of 700,000 U.S. troops sent to Iraq and Kuwait in January 1991 were exposed to nerve gas and other chemical agents. Though aware of this, the Department of Defense and CIA launched a campaign of lies and concocted a cover-up that continues today."
"When Brown and others tried to obtain their medical records to prove their illnesses were service-related, they learned that the records had disappeared."

Sen. Bernie Sanders told Conservatives: “If you can’t afford to take care of your veterans, than don’t go war. These people are bearing the brunt of what war is about, We have a moral obligation to support them.” February, 26th, 2014

Neither of these recent wars have yet been paid for, nor the continued blowback from the spread and growth from the policies implemented!
Neither the long term results from, including the long ignored or outright denied existence of, till this Administrations Cabinet and Gen Shinseki, only Government branch consistent for the past six years, Veterans issues from!
As well as under deficits most of the, grossly under funded for decades and the wars from now, VA budget is still borrowed, with interest, thus added problem creating costs, with representative who control the purse strings blaming the mostly dedicated VA personal within, that shouldn't exist!


No comments: