Top VA Health Official Resigns Amid Scandal Over Treatment Delays

[mystery-ak]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/05/16/313146627/top-va-health-official-resigns-amid-scandal-over-treatment-delays?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=politics&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews


Top VA Health Official Resigns Amid Scandal Over Treatment Delays

by
May 16, 2014 2:59 PM ET

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki says he's accepted the resignation of the agency's undersecretary for health, a day after the two officials testified before Congress about a growing controversy delays in treatment.

"Today, I accepted the resignation of Dr. Robert Petzel, undersecretary for health in the Department of Veterans Affairs," Shinseki said in a statement cited by The Associated Press.

"As we know from the veteran community, most veterans are satisfied with the quality of their VA health care, but we must do more to improve timely access to that care," Shinseki said.

[mystery-ak]

scapegoat...

[Chieftain]

scapegoat...

Not necessarily.  It is very likely that Shinseki found he did not treat this problem with adequate seriousness, or even found evidence he knew about the lists.

Someone's head had to roll, and this was probably a good start.  I want to see disciplinary action at the actual VA Medical Centers where these deaths occurred.  Whomever allowed these lists to exists while submitting doctored statistics should face criminal prosecution for fraud at the very least. 

Someone besides the Administration needs to investigate all of this at VA to find out exactly what has been going on.  That someone needs the power and authority to look at every single VA Center across the country and since there are deaths of service members involved, that someone needs the ability to bring specific criminal charges as appropriate.  That all means that another Select Committee ought to be formed to look into the long history of abuses at VA.  The committee can request a Special Prosecutor if need be as well.

Time to start playing hardball on this. 

[Fishrrman]

Chieftan wrote:
[[ Whomever allowed these lists to exists while submitting doctored statistics should face criminal prosecution for fraud at the very least. ]]

Sumthin' tells me there are a lot of other "lists" being burned right now.

[[ Someone besides the Administration needs to investigate all of this at VA to find out exactly what has been going on ]]

Yup. How can anyone trust this "administration" to "investigate" ANYthing about itself?

[[ That all means that another Select Committee ought to be formed to look into the long history of abuses at VA.  The committee can request a Special Prosecutor if need be as well. ]]

Very good suggestion. I imagine there are even a good number of democrats who could get on board (although that's just a guess, with the current "state of division" in DC, perhaps it's just wishful thinking).

This is something that ought to strike right to the heart of older vets -- and there are plenty of democratic ones, as well.

[speekinout]

That was all for show. Petzel was scheduled to retire in just a few months. So they let him go a little early so they could make it look like they were doing something about the problem. Let's not fall for that.