The Briefing Room
General Category => Editorial/Opinion/Blogs => Topic started by: mystery-ak on May 15, 2014, 02:42:33 pm
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http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/obama-has-every-reason-to-fix-the-va-why-hasn-t-he-20140514 (http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/obama-has-every-reason-to-fix-the-va-why-hasn-t-he-20140514)
Obama Has Every Reason to Fix the VA. Why Hasn't He?
The candidate made taking care of veterans a pledge and a priority, but hundreds of thousands of them are stuck in a long waiting line for disability decisions.
By Jordain Carney and Stacy Kaper
May 14, 2014
Part One in a series on the Veterans Affairs Department.
The failure of the Veterans Affairs Department to quickly compensate veterans for their disabilities is a moral abomination: It leaves soldiers wounded by war waiting in long lines for payments they need and believe they have earned.
And VA failures are under new scrutiny amid reports of a string of preventable deaths among veterans and a growing political controversy around them—and many in Congress are pointing a finger in the White House's direction.
So why has President Obama failed to fix the backlog of veterans' disability claims after five years in office? More than 300,000 claims to the VA have been pending for 125 days or more, a time stamp that puts them in the agency's official definition of "backlogged."
And why did a long line of Obama's predecessors—Republican and Democratic alike—end their own tenures without fixing the problem?
In short, because fixing the VA backlog isn't just a question of putting the proper resources into an overwhelmed agency. Solving it would require not only untangling a Gordian knot of dysfunctional bureaucracy surrounding the VA claims system and decades of neglect, it would also mean overcoming a perfect storm of factors in the past few years that has made the problem much, much worse.
Surge in Claims
The VA received 1 million new claims during Obama's first year in office—the most it had ever received at one time—and the count climbed from there. Annual claims peaked in 2011 at 1.3 million, falling to 1.04 million claims received in 2013.
What's driving the surging number of claims? In short, a pair of wars that have created more veterans and new Obama administration rules that have made veterans from all wars eligible for more disability compensation.
(http://cdn-media.nationaljournal.com/?controllerName=image&action-get&id=38993&format=nj2013_8_columns_tiny)
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The problem is the fix the VA came up with to please the Boss....that is these secret waiting lists for Vets to get on the appointment list, simply to enable the VA to produce statistics that make the Administration look good without actually spending more money or providing any improvement in actual veteran's healthcare.
The lists were the Obama fix, and now the fix has been exposed...again.
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I think it's much more sinister than that.
Every time a veteran dies.....one Obama voter becomes more powerful.
Every time a veteran dies, the government 'saves' money for a Progressive entitlement.
Call it exactly what it is.....a form of state-sponsored genocide of a group of Americans.
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Call it exactly what it is.....a form of state-sponsored genocide of a group of Americans.
I had that same thought today when I heard the news and the latest load of B.S. from Shinseki.
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It should be more than slightly obvious Obama DETESTS THE MILITARY and anything he can do, or not do as the case may be, to abase and demean members of the military is the path he will choose.
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It should be more than slightly obvious Obama DETESTS THE MILITARY and anything he can do, or not do as the case may be, to abase and demean members of the military is the path he will choose.
That makes Moochelle's supposed love for veterans and their families even more laughable.
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It should be more than slightly obvious Obama DETESTS THE MILITARY and anything he can do, or not do as the case may be, to abase and demean members of the military is the path he will choose.
Its not just Obama either. Remember AlGore's promised "Peace Dividend"?? He was going to produce it by dismantling DOD lock, stock and barrel. Dhimmies have been dreaming about downsizing the military permanently for decades and it took Team Obama/Kerry/Hagel to finally pull it off.
It will take a decade to repair the damage after Obama is gone.