What has been happening in Phoenix is inexcusable. Guilty VA administrators should go to jail.
I totally agree with that.
I don't mean to give the impression that I think the VA (or by extension the .gov) is infallible in any respect.
I've had my issues with the VA, just not in relation to healthcare.
I can easily accept that others have.
If some part of the VA system is broken then I support fixing it 110%.
If VA officials, managers, or rank-and-file employees are failing our brothers then they need to be held accountable.
If that means firing, so be it.
If that means federal prison, so be it.
All I'm opposed to is this outrageous idea that, because the federal government is involved in something, it is of logical necessity bound to fail; or the obverse of that, which is that because the private sector is involved in something it is of logical necessity somehow more likely to succeed.
CLEARLY neither of those assertions is accurate.
Many of us have known about the Phoenix VA and have been complaining to Congressional representatives for years.
This is the first I'm hearing about it but I'll take your word for it that this is an ongoing problem.
But it isn't, at its core, all that different a problem than what is experienced as a result of ineffective/inefficient/negligent leadership of civilian institutions.
Executives and managers everywhere are interested in saving $2 (by cutting whatever corners are necessary) in order that they'll see and additional $1 in their bonus.
Sometimes those corners are cut ethically, sometimes they're cut unethically.
These are HUMAN problems - not government vs. civilian problems.
Here's a quite from an article discussing this issue (I don't know if it's the article posted in the OP):
Dr. Sam Foote just retired after spending 24 years with the VA system in Phoenix. The veteran doctor told CNN in an exclusive interview that the Phoenix VA works off two lists for patient appointments:
There's an "official" list that's shared with officials in Washington and shows the VA has been providing timely appointments, which Foote calls a sham list. And then there's the real list that's hidden from outsiders, where wait times can last more than a year.
"The scheme was deliberately put in place to avoid the VA's own internal rules," said Foote in Phoenix.
So in this case the government, Big Daddy VA, actually has policies in place to prevent just this sort of thing from happening.
The problem was/is that unethical managers way down the the VA pecking order deliberately circumvented the rules that the government has put in place in order to appear more effective and efficient than they actually are.
How often do we hear of such things happening in private industry?
General Motors is being sued, as we speak, for failing to recall 2.5 million vehicles despite the company's and executives' knowledge that the vehicles were built using defective ignitions switches (ie. ignition switches that did not meet government standards).
13 people are dead as a result of those switches and millions more have lost millions of dollars in aggregate resale value as a result.
But we don't hear our friends on the far right screeching that capitalism and private business ownership are to blame.
No.
When it's a private business they'll place blame where it belongs: with the company or individual responsible for the problem.
But when it's the VA system that experiences a VERY similar type of problem the absolute VERY first thing they do is engage their mouths before their brains.
I'm sorry to hear that the VA system in your neck of the woods is sucking.
I hope you'll see whatever problems you're experiencing corrected very soon.
