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A fatal wait: Veterans languish and die on a VA hospital's secret list [W:36]

Why are you unable to listen and comprehend what is said?

Bureaucrats are not politicians. They in fact are apolitical, and hold their jobs no matter what politician is in office, and which party has the majority.

How can the bureaucrats do anything if Congress refuses to adequately fund the VA, compliments of the pols you (i. e. "Very Conservative") voted for?

Next time, think before you reply (or vote).
 
Why are you unable to listen and comprehend what is said?

Bureaucrats are not politicians. They in fact are apolitical, and hold their jobs no matter what politician is in office, and which party has the majority.

You keep trying to sling political darts, and trying to find a political target. This is not political at all, it is simply a broken system. And bureaucrats who got their jobs under Clinton are still chugging away happily in the same jobs as they were over 20 years ago. The Secretary of the VA is a political appointee. The Assistant Junior Undersecretary to the Assistant Advisor on Veteran Bedpan Acquisition and Maintenance however is a bureaucrat, and will continue inspecting bedpans and collect a 6 figure salary doing so because they have union protections and know it is almost impossible to ever fire a government employee.
Your typical senior administrator doesnt have union protections. But then...they dont need union protections because they have procedural protections. You are correct...once an administrator is burrowed in they are harder than ticks to dislodge. You have to kill programs...and lord knows we cant kill programs. The greater protection for administrators is the vet lobbies. Once you threaten to cancel programs (regardless of the program) people scream about how you dont care about vets. Then it becomes political and all about votes.
 
How can the bureaucrats do anything if Congress refuses to adequately fund the VA, compliments of the pols you (i. e. "Very Conservative") voted for?

Next time, think before you reply (or vote).

Oh, I am thinking. I am also not a political animal like you are.

And trust me, I am not "Very Conservative", you must have me completely confused with somebody else to think that, or you simply assume that because I do not agree with you I must be so.

The first statement you said, I actually can't make heads nor tails of what you said. How can somebody do anything if there is no money, is that what you are trying to say?

Sheer coprolite, nothing else but. Please come again when you actually have something useful to contribute, simply throwing around more political crap is not a solution.
 
You have to kill programs...and lord knows we cant kill programs.

Oh, there are ways to kill programs, I saw it myself first-hand.

Back in the early 1990's, President Bush got a new VA program approved that would give job training for veterans who got out with little to no useable job skills. It was only to be used for the first 2 years after discharge, and only for a Vocational type program. This was not to give veterans education, but employment. And you had to be in a handful of MOS where it was determined that the civilian use of your skills was not available (generally it was all combat arms skills like Infantry, Artillery, Ordinance, and the like). That was great for me, since after spending a decade in the Infantry, I found that the job market for "Mercenary" or "Contract Killer" was amazingly small.

Well, after just 3 years, President Clinton came into office, and wanted the program killed so the money could be spent on his constituents. Well, that can't be done because of procedures, so instead this Veterans Only program was opened up to any "Aerospace Worker" who had been laid off within the previous 5 years.

I applied for this program as soon as I got out, and was sitting in the local VA Office (Palmdale, California) next to aeronautical engineers and avionics specialists. HVAC specialists, electrical experts, and they were all trying for the same program.

Well, needless to say I did not get anything. By the time I was able to apply, almost all of the money was gone. One guy I met I still remember, he had a doctorate in engineering, but was taking advantage of this program to get a free Novell Engineer training program. Lots of people took advantage of it, but very few of them in the last year were veterans.

When they went through their end of year audit, the program had so badly blown the budget it was cancelled. So now the VA has no program to retrain newly discharged Veterans so they can actually have useful job skills when they come from an MOS that has no real civilian position. If I remember right, the budget was later redirected to the PELL Grant system. Just like a couple of years ago when our Post 9-11 program was raided and raped, and the money shoved into PELL.

Once again, Veterans get the shaft, and money is shoved at Civilians.
 
How can the bureaucrats do anything if Congress refuses to adequately fund the VA, compliments of the pols you (i. e. "Very Conservative") voted for?

Next time, think before you reply (or vote).
Do you understand what is actually being funded and at what levels?

"The President’s 2015 Budget includes $163.9 billion for VA in 2015. This includes $68.3 billion in discretionary resources and $95.6 billion in mandatory funding."

Of that 'mandatory funding'...$72,172,802,000.00 is paid in pensions and financial compensations. Thats not healthcare...thats cash money.

The VA suffers from the same problems state and local governments are suffering from. They have made cash promises to people and heaped the burden on future taxpayers. I mentioned earlier the problems with 'concurrent disability'. Thats a HUGE problem. It USED to be that if you retired from the military you got 100% of half of your base pay. If you had a medical disability rated at, say, 40%, then you would get 60% of your retirement pay from DFAS and 40% from the VA tax free. Then someone came up with the idea that really...that 40% should be above and beyond your retiree pay so now you get 140% of your retired military pay due to a medical disability. The extends up to 200% if you are rated at 100% disabled (but...100% disabled does NOT mean you cant work).

Then there is that whole 'discretionary budget thing. The discretionary budget is greater than the obligated mandatory funding available for healthcare.

Start to see why this is such a monsta?
 
Oh, there are ways to kill programs, I saw it myself first-hand.

Back in the early 1990's, President Bush got a new VA program approved that would give job training for veterans who got out with little to no useable job skills. It was only to be used for the first 2 years after discharge, and only for a Vocational type program. This was not to give veterans education, but employment. And you had to be in a handful of MOS where it was determined that the civilian use of your skills was not available (generally it was all combat arms skills like Infantry, Artillery, Ordinance, and the like). That was great for me, since after spending a decade in the Infantry, I found that the job market for "Mercenary" or "Contract Killer" was amazingly small.

Well, after just 3 years, President Clinton came into office, and wanted the program killed so the money could be spent on his constituents. Well, that can't be done because of procedures, so instead this Veterans Only program was opened up to any "Aerospace Worker" who had been laid off within the previous 5 years.

I applied for this program as soon as I got out, and was sitting in the local VA Office (Palmdale, California) next to aeronautical engineers and avionics specialists. HVAC specialists, electrical experts, and they were all trying for the same program.

Well, needless to say I did not get anything. By the time I was able to apply, almost all of the money was gone. One guy I met I still remember, he had a doctorate in engineering, but was taking advantage of this program to get a free Novell Engineer training program. Lots of people took advantage of it, but very few of them in the last year were veterans.

When they went through their end of year audit, the program had so badly blown the budget it was cancelled. So now the VA has no program to retrain newly discharged Veterans so they can actually have useful job skills when they come from an MOS that has no real civilian position. If I remember right, the budget was later redirected to the PELL Grant system. Just like a couple of years ago when our Post 9-11 program was raided and raped, and the money shoved into PELL.

Once again, Veterans get the shaft, and money is shoved at Civilians.
I hear you. The thing is...that program is still in the budget. Administrators are still getting paid. Annual Budget Submission - Office of Budget

I have more experience in the Behavioral Health realm of the VA than the medical needs realm. I can tell you it is crazy. They dont have a psychiatric program. They dont have a psychiatric needs program. They have dozens of specific special needs programs and each one of those comes with its own set of bureaucracy and administration. And for the sheer volume of programs they have, their effectiveness and connectedness to actual veterans is limited.
 
Do you understand what is actually being funded and at what levels?

"The President’s 2015 Budget includes $163.9 billion for VA in 2015. This includes $68.3 billion in discretionary resources and $95.6 billion in mandatory funding."

Of that 'mandatory funding'...$72,172,802,000.00 is paid in pensions and financial compensations. Thats not healthcare...thats cash money.

The VA suffers from the same problems state and local governments are suffering from. They have made cash promises to people and heaped the burden on future taxpayers. I mentioned earlier the problems with 'concurrent disability'. Thats a HUGE problem. It USED to be that if you retired from the military you got 100% of half of your base pay. If you had a medical disability rated at, say, 40%, then you would get 60% of your retirement pay from DFAS and 40% from the VA tax free. Then someone came up with the idea that really...that 40% should be above and beyond your retiree pay so now you get 140% of your retired military pay due to a medical disability. The extends up to 200% if you are rated at 100% disabled (but...100% disabled does NOT mean you cant work).

Then there is that whole 'discretionary budget thing. The discretionary budget is greater than the obligated mandatory funding available for healthcare.

Start to see why this is such a monsta?

I fail to see why the pension benefits are excessive, or any evidence that the discretionary spending isn't being to improve hospitals. Cite it, please.

What is known, but what Rush Limbaugh (your Messiah) did not tell you, is that your outfit recently blocked legislation increasing funding for VA hospitals. . .

Republicans used a procedural move to kill the legislation, which was the largest veterans bill in decades and had the support of all of the major veterans groups. The bill would have funded twenty-seven new clinics and medical centers, and made VA healthcare more accessible for veterans without service-related injuries.

Senate Republicans Turn Their Backs on Veterans | The Nation
 
I fail to see why the pension benefits are excessive, or any evidence that the discretionary spending isn't being to improve hospitals. Cite it, please.

What is known, but what Rush Limbaugh (your Messiah) did not tell you, is that your outfit recently blocked legislation increasing funding for VA hospitals. . .

FYI, I have 60 more citations of GOP actions to block VA benefits, if you're interested. Somethin' tells me you aren't.
 
FYI, I have 60 more citations of GOP actions to block VA benefits, if you're interested. Somethin' tells me you aren't.

This is because we tune you out as a political hack. You do not give a damn about Veterans or anything other then trying to throw crap around.

No solutions, no care, you simply see this as an excuse to politically pontificate and we generally are rejecting it.

Oh, and BTW, I do not listen to Rush Limbaugh. And I really could not care less what he says, no more then Rachel Maddow.
 
I fail to see why the pension benefits are excessive, or any evidence that the discretionary spending isn't being to improve hospitals. Cite it, please.

What is known, but what Rush Limbaugh (your Messiah) did not tell you, is that your outfit recently blocked legislation increasing funding for VA hospitals. . .
:lamo

You pulled the Rush Limbaugh card...

:lamo


FM
 
This is because we tune you out as a political hack.

Nope, the political hacks are the Limbaugh addicts, i. e. conservative voters.

You do not give a damn about Veterans

Mostly correct. As a Libertarian, I do not care about post-Vietnam vets--they made their beds to fight for an adversary (i. e. the govt.) and wasted my tax dollars (and those of future generations) doing so, instead of engaging in something honorable, like serving their country, so they got what was coming to them.

or anything other then trying to throw crap around.

Yes everything based on actual citations from authoritative sources (i. e. doesn't come Limbaugh) is considered "crap" to conservatives. That we knew years ago :rolleyes:

What we're praying for is the day when conservatives, too, learn the citation concept.

Actually,

No solutions, no care, you simply see this as an excuse to politically pontificate and we generally are rejecting it.

Oh, and BTW, I do not listen to Rush Limbaugh.

That would be insubordination for a conservative.
 
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Mostly correct. As a Libertarian, I do not care about post-Vietnam vets--they made their beds to fight for an adversary (i. e. the govt.) and wasted my tax dollars (and those of future generations) doing so, instead of engaging in something honorable, like serving their country, so they got what was coming to them.

So exactly what should they have done to prevent fighting in Vietnam?
 
FYI, I have 60 more citations of GOP actions to block VA benefits, if you're interested. Somethin' tells me you aren't.

I am. Please post them.
 
Nope, the political hacks are the Limbaugh addicts, i. e. conservative voters.



Mostly correct. As a Libertarian, I do not care about post-Vietnam vets--they made their beds to fight for an adversary (i. e. the govt.) and wasted my tax dollars (and those of future generations) doing so, instead of engaging in something honorable, like serving their country, so they got what was coming to them.

Disgusting opinion. Many of those men were drafted. Jesus. Do you even think about the crap you post??
 
Disgusting opinion. Many of those men were drafted. Jesus. Do you even think about the crap you post??

Actually much less then you probably think.

Only around 30% of those who served in the Vietnam era were drafted.
 
Disgusting opinion. Many of those men were drafted. Jesus. Do you even think about the crap you post??

You did not carefully read what I posted. . .

Mostly correct. As a Libertarian, I do not care about post-Vietnam vets--they made their beds to fight for an adversary (i. e. the govt.) and wasted my tax dollars (and those of future generations) doing so, instead of engaging in something honorable, like serving their country, so they got what was coming to them.
 
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