GOP pushes for accountability bill in VA reform in weekly address
(CNN) - Republicans in their weekly address Saturday slammed the Department of Veterans Affairs for keeping soldiers waiting for their disability checks.
In calling for support of the VA Management Accountability Act, Rep. Jackie Walorski associated crippling bureaucracy in the agency to preventable deaths of patients waiting for their paper work to go through.
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The legislation would give the Veterans Affairs secretary the authority to remove senior officials when problems, such as backlogs and reports of delays in care occur on their watch.
"Without this real-world accountability, the VA has become the epitome of bureaucracy run amok," said the Republican from Indiana who is a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee and co-sponsor of the accountability legislation.
"These men and women fought for our country – they shouldn’t have to fight for their own benefits. We’ve traced much of this problem back to a sheer lack of accountability."
CNN's Dana Davidsen contributed to this report.
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I was medically discharged out of the Army almost 20 years ago with a Traumatic Brain Injury. I have been going to the VA on and off for 20 years seeking help for attention, concentration, memory, etc. I moved to Tampa in 2009 and stumbled on their TBI Rehab program. I was in the rehab program for 8 months, if I had not moved from New England to Florida, I would have still been wasting my time going to the VA hospitals up there. I had a 40% rating for TBI in 2010, I put in for an increase. My Compensation & Pension evaluation was done by a General Medicine Physicians Assistant. The examiner asked me a bunch of yes or no questions, decided that I never had a TBI, or if I did it must have been a very minimal one. I was in a coma for 2 weeks, I was a 3 on the coma scale (anything lower means you're dead), spent 6 months in hospitals after, was medically discharged from Walter Reed Army Medical Center.... If the VA put 1/4 of the money into help veterans instead of putting all the money towards denying veterans, my life would be completely different today.
Why doesn't the vets hold the asses of republicans to the fire for not extending coverage for Tricare..Ask your republicans hero in McCain how he fought for not extending it..Yah ,republicans should be held for accountability for the years of being traitors for obstructing everything progressive like jobs in helping America..Come on republicans let's hear your lies now...
Accountability? most if not all elected officials don't know how to spell the word. They know that the populace has the attention span, like that of a ferret on speed. They do whatever they want to do, and they know the majority won't remember it's occurrence, and if they do remember they'll more than likely blame the wrong party.
Donna, just saying
Posts are simply disgusting, and degrading to Americans everywhere-whether on a battlefield or not. You really need to examine what is more important-human life or your politics.
I wish that once, just once in this election season (now apparently extending out to 2016), the GOP would actually do something for Americans- and particularly veterans. For the vast majority of the GOP our men and women in the military are mere props for them to lather defense contractors with cash. Otherwise they are expendable pawns in their violent, ignorant foreign policy- and that we have 45,000 newly injured veterans means nothing to them at all. The GOP would cut veteran's benefits, pay, educational benefits, retirement, and cycle them endlessly through the Hell-ish wars they create for their own benefit- then throw them away- like the poor and middle classes the GOP so disregards.
The GOP traded it's soul for election cash, and are now meaningless in the lives of Americans.
Donna
If this was a private business, these people would be fired and new people brought in that could get the job done right. But since this is government and union workers, nothing ever happens, people get paid and probably bonuses, while things get worse and worse. It is your massive, wasteful, inefficient, incompetent, uncaring government bureaucracy in action. Pathetic and disgraceful.
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Handling complex issues like veterans' affairs is thankfully not left to the "for-profit" private sector. The Republican myth that everything runs better as a business is a bold, bald lie. Private prisons? More expensive and prone to abuse and law suits; For-profit schools? Lower standards, lower pay and damage to the existing public school system; Halliburton to fun military base operations? Great if you like electrified showers.Face it, corporations private or public have but one motivation-profit, NOT service or ethics.
Yes, "Corporations are people too" may resonate with the Right, but until I sit next to a corporation in church, or have one of their kids in my class, or one gets the death sentence for killing their employees, well, you get the picture.
Pray to your dollars, and your false gods of corporate America and keep on hating our government and President-that's your definition of being a "patriot". They'll take your cash as soon as they can, and do whatever it takes to make their shareholders happy- you know the rich you also revere- and they'll leave you in the ditch.
don in albuquerque
Donna, just saying
Posts are simply disgusting, and degrading to Americans everywhere-whether on a battlefield or not. You really need to examine what is more important-human life or your politics.
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The usual lefty Democrat response, attack the people who support our veterans and point out the total incompetence of this Obama administration. Protect the Messiah at all costs, even if that means hurting our veterans and denying them with the medical treatment they earned and deserve, without this massive incompetent government getting in the way.
@Donna: do a little research away from a lying RWNJ site and read for yourself what President Obama and his administration has done for vets, no the least of which is finally getting us out of Iraq and now Afghanistan.
You righties love to take us into war without regard for anything except making money for the likes of Haliburton – and NONE of you have the stones to admit it.
Just saying, et al: the proposed cuts to the military budget were suggested by he military itself.
BTW, were you this upset when the Dick Cheney proposed 25% military cts when he was Sec of Defense?
*crickets*
@Donna,did you know your messiah in Bush and his croonies can't leave the country because over 100 countrys have warrents for war crimes against them..Look it up Donna and see what happens if Bush or any of his buds get caught and have to be heard at the ICC hearings at the Hague,Netherlands..Your buds will hang with a historic bunch like those before them that too made a living out of war and its results..
Donna
The term "Patriot" is so far out of your vocabulary it might as well be martian. There was no defense of Obama in any of my post's, but your hatred of America, and in particular Americans, as always comes shining through. Give it up. We all see you.
If there was more money to get more people to perform the service and to make the bureaucracy move smoother, then there would less of a problem. I don't know why there is this disconnect for the GOP other than the dislike of spending money on government programs.
The usual lefty Democrat response, attack the people who support our veterans and point out the total incompetence of this Obama administration. Protect the Messiah at all costs, even if that means hurting our veterans and denying them with the medical treatment they earned and deserve, without this massive incompetent government getting in the way.
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2 points Donna:
1. The GOP or the "Right" do not support veterans or the military- they support the contractors only.
2. The GOP has cut the VA, veterans' retirement funds, educational support and more. As far as your so-called incompetence- answer me this- who put our soldiers in harm's way for their gain? I think the answer you are struggling with is Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney- who profited from the war, or used war for their personal goals- our two longest wars are ending under this President. Not the chickehawks of the Right.