VA medical care problems #2

At least one news anchor is asking congress about their responsibility in the shameful deficiencies in the VA medical system.    Candy Crowley in her CNN interview with Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), chairs of the House and Senate committees on veterans affairs, noted that the two committees have held a total of 90 hearings since January 2013, and she asked Miller and Sanders:   Is there not some failure of oversight from your committees?

Let me interject here that in recent years the VA medical system has consistently received high marks from outside observers and from veterans themselves.   It is generally rated higher in quality of care -- for those in the system -- than the private sector.   The current problem is access for new patients getting into the system.

This problem clearly is related to the tremendous upsurge in new patients needing VA care -- a problem that should have been obvious as soon as Bush-Cheney started two wars.  But, like everything else, they did not plan for what happened after their glorious invasion.

As reported in the Huffington Post, Rep. Miller responded:  "Sure, everybody is probably culpable in this.  "We're doing what we've been asked to do. That is to find out the information."

Sen. Sanders pointed out that 2 million new veterans have flooded an already crowded health care system and that extra funding is needed to handle the increase.  "They're treating 6.5 million people a year, 230,000 people every single day. Is there waste in the system? Absolutely.   But at the end of the day, when you have 2 million new veterans coming into the system, some with very difficult and complicated problems, I do think we have to take a hard look and see if we have the resources."

We now know that President Obama has repeatedly asked congress for more money for the discretionary funds the include VA medical services.   Veterans groups have strongly urged separate, dedicated appropriations for VA Health Care so that it does not have to compete with other, politically hot requests from the discretionary fund, as it is done now.   And we now know that Republicans have voted down both requests.

Doesn't this make it clear that Republicans bear some of the responsibility for the debacle in health care for new veterans?    It's not only a problem of numbers, but that seems to be a big part of what led to other problems.  Which means that it should not be used as a political weapon.

Ralph