http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376560/va-hospital-scandal-editors
From the article- “In Phoenix, more than a thousand veterans were placed on a special waiting list, kept secret from the outside and from higher-ups, where they often waited for more than a year to get care. At least 40 veterans died while waiting on that list for basic care. The VA requires its hospitals to provide appointments within a month or so, and Phoenix VA officials used the secret list to pretend they were meeting that standard while vets died by the dozens on their watch. This problem isn’t isolated: In Los Angeles in 2012, for instance, more than 40,000 requests for diagnoses were “administratively closed” — i.e., struck from the books — so reported wait times would drop.”
And for this despicable fraud the administrators received a bonus.The bastards should be made to clear Mine fields!
Justice…next to shame, the rarest thing on earth.
It is a common political ploy to give the impression that waiting lists have been shortened. All these measures such as time to first specialist appointment or time to surgery are open to manipulation. The gNats did it by raising the bar for entry onto the waiting list. Both Labour and National have special initiatives (done by the private sector or as excessively remunerated after-hour lists in the DHB’s) to get hips, eyes and hearts done so that their figures presented in parliament look good. This is what happens with politicised medicine.
I can’t for the life of me work out what’s wrong with giving people very substantial tax rebates if they take out private medical insurance.
It’d lighten the load on the public hospital system, introduce some freedom of choice and encourage the growth of private medicine.
Where’s the flaw? All I can think is that governments would prefer to have control over our health because it’s..well, you know….control.
Because any kind of tax rebate is wrong, and two wrongs don’t make a right.
We need to abolish all rebates AND government healthcare.
Get rid of GP subsidies, “free” vaccines, “free” emergency clinics, PHARMAC, and those great sinkholes of at payers money – the state hospitals. Abolish the whole lot and then the need for any rebate goes away!
Sigh…extremists of any flavour are repugnant, Berwick. And you’re an extremist.
Now pull your idiot ranting head in or I’ll ban you.
O/T I spent Easter watching Oliver Stone’s “Untold History of America.” He boots all Presidents since FDR except JFK.
KG; have you seen it? Any reviews? I accept that the writer has an agenda but it seemed well researched especially on the actions of Harry S Truman regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Obama gets a hiding along with the others, but I noted he really climbs in to Eisenhower/Johnson/Ford/Reagan. The premis I detect is that the USA’s largest industry is the military.
Haven’t seen it Cad, mostly because I’m no admirer of Oliver Stone. But if you reckon it’s worth a look I’ll get hold of it.
It is well researched but watch it expecting a personal message.
Ok thanks. I don’t mind an agenda, so long as the facts are fairly put.
I’ve seen bits and pieces of it on TV here,didn’t watch the whole thing since what I did see was mostly fiction as to his ideas of cause.
He also missed the mark,as most lefty’s do regarding “the military industrial complex”what they always miss is that after WWII we were stuck between a rock and a hard place.The US and the USSR were the two biggest kids on the block and with vastly different political and social orders it was a given war in some form would happen.We had to maintain a large military and compete in an arms race otherwise we would not survive.The left in the US simply didn’t see the Soviets as a threat same as always.They have their Utopian fantasy about communism and they will not be shaken in it right up to kneeing in a trench.Evidence of this is seen in how many actively wished the Soviets would win.
At the same time we did not want Europe to re-arm.We had just finished fighting in a second World War not of our making and given the previous 2000 years of European history we were pretty certain there would be another war within 30-40 years so what were we supposed to do but become the worlds beat cops?Who else could or should do it France?
I have a slightly favorable opinion of JFK,he did have some colossal failures,Bay of Pigs was one,but all in all he was no worse than the rest and much better than Johnson.The history of the world would have been better if LBJ had been shot instead of Kennedy. One thing that Stone will not admit because he is a leftist/socialist is that LBJ was the first president to break the bank.It was his disastrous social and fiscal polices that have landed us in the financial straights we are in today. That’s my take on the whole mess
Thanks Darin, that seems like a pretty fair summary of the situation post-WW2.
Leadership and culture come from on high. That is why a leader’s attitudes and behavior are so important. What the leader does and advocates, the underlings mime. If the leader is lax, his subordinates will be lax. If the leader is less than honest, his subordinates are less than honest. If the leader hides things and skews facts as a matter of course and the consequences be damned…well, you get the picture. Long ago, we took the attitude that character no longer matters, and it shows. Now those who have sacrificed the most and are the least able to fight back are victims of our own apathy and lackadaisical approach to governing. This is as much the citizen’s fault as it is the administrator’s.
Daylight may be the best disinfectant, but it is also the rarest and least applied. For years Washington D.C. has been secluded in darkness and secrecy. Men and women who have spent decades in power know all the tricks to hide from the light and to keep the public in the dark, and this willful and wanton result is the fruit of that poisonous tree.
Because the citizen was negligent in the discharge of his civil duties, unjust men were permitted to perpetrate those acts. That is why freedom is not free and why morality and responsibility matter. But those who believe as we do know this and once again, I find myself preaching to the choir. Those responsible for this travesty should be forced to pay a heavy price for their misdeeds, and the families should be compensated for the untimely loss of their loved ones. Every individual from Eric K. Shinseki on down, should be held accountable for this nightmare.
What can I say except damn right!
