“Wow, there’s fraud, inefficiency and dishonesty at the VA hospitals?” said no one – except Democrats in D.C.
Not only did Obama feign surprise, other Democrats said they were "shocked" by the matter. It is yet to be determined if Nancy Pelosi was shocked by the allegations, since her face always looks shocked.
Once again, Obama said he only heard about this scandal through the media. Perhaps he was too busy not knowing about the IRS scandal, Benghazi, NSA spying, wiretapping of media opponents, the GSA, the ObamaCare website debacle and Secret Service hooker scandals. There seem to be no limits to what Obama does not know. He holds press conferences, not to tell us things, but to find out what is going on in his administration. He was briefed by Entertainment Tonight on the Kanye West/ Kim Kardashian marriage; he seems to be up to speed on that.
There are two very simple reasons the VA is a dysfunctional bureaucratic mess. One, it is a government-run. Two, it is now 80% public sector unionized. These are people who come to work each day only concerned about one thing: what they are going to have for lunch. There is no profit motive, no risk of getting fired and little accountability. The slower they work, the more money they get. Veterans die, but they keep their jobs.
At least 188 VA employees (85 nurses), some making six-figure salaries, spend 100% of their time working on union matters. This “official time” is only what they report, and what we pay for. They use it politicking for Democrats. Unions should pay them, not taxpayers.
The VA is run for union workers, not patients. They don’t even remind vets of their appointments, thus no-show rates are as high as 45%. This means less work for union members.
The union mentality and ambivalence of a big government bureaucracy explains the awful care our veterans have received. More importantly, it’s a precursor to the care we all will be getting under ObamaCare in ten years.
We owe vets medical care and a burial. Maybe Obama plans to combine the two to save money; he thinks he can bury vets in paperwork.
Half of veterans are over age 65 and get Medicare. Why not give the rest of the vets vouchers for care from local hospitals and private physicians? Why own 971 VA hospitals and clinics and incur overhead costs all over the country? For both price and quality, private medical competition serves consumers better than any government ever has. Sell the hospitals and let our vets get good care near where they live.
The bigger picture is why we have so many vets needing help anyway. Fewer wars of choice would be a nice start to a solution. We were about out of the woods with the Vietnam-era vets aging, and then we went and invaded two countries we didn't need to.
Obama’s feckless and naïve foreign policy might pay off in one regard. He seems only to want to scramble U.S. jets when he hears what might have been a racial slur by a Republican.
His answer to the 300 African Christian girls taken captive, to be sold into sex slavery for $12 apiece, is to Tweet about it. As you might imagine, a backcountry Muslim extremist group like Boko Haram really fears snarky social media comments. So that’s worked well. But if it does not get the girls freed, I hear Obama might de-friend the group on Facebook. If that doesn’t work, he might instruct the CIA to post catty remarks about its leader on Yik Yak or, as he call it, the "nuclear option."
Obama even goes around Congress and exchanges five high-ranking Taliban commanders for one of our guys. Obama can’t do anything without running a 5 to 1 deficit, or that might just be the new Common Core math he was using. Perhaps to get the great medical care they deserve, our VA heroes can turn themselves in as Afghan Taliban fighters and get top-notch medical care — and a $500,000 soccer field — at Guantanamo Bay.
This VA scandal is so bad that Obama has instructed his media to divert their headlines to the failings of ObamaCare. Do you think the media will draw the obvious parallels? I’ll give you five to one they don’t.
Ron Hart, a libertarian syndicated op-ed humorist,award-winning author and TV/radio commentator can be reached at Ron@RonaldHart.com or visit www.RonaldHart.com
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: The VA Mess is ObamaCare in Ten Years – or Sooner