VA medical care problems #4: "J' accuse"

At the risk of losing readers who are not interested in the "other side" of the current VA medical care "scandal," I'm going to do one more day's blog on this subject.   I haven't quite had my say yet, my J'accuse.

I am not exonerating Democrats or the Obama administration.    Why has this not been making headline news for months?  Even if the basic problem was lack of funding to increase capacity, why did they not do something to get the attention needed?

I will concede that President Obama has had a few too many crisis issues to deal with;  perhaps the Secretary of Veterans Affairs tried to get his attention, and there just wasn't time in the day.

Or, is it perhaps the case that Secretary Shinseki and President Obama were relying on the comprehensive funding bill working its way through the senate as the answer to the needs that they were well aware of?   After all, it was just three months ago that Republicans defeated it.

Whatever blame lies with Democrats and Obama's administration, blame also lies with Republicans in congress.   The same people, who were not troubled in the least that we started two wars and didn't bother to pay for them, now claim that we just can't afford to increase the deficit by paying for the medical care of the soldiers who came home wounded from those wars.

These are the Republicans, the same people who claim to be the true patriots, the same people who started these wars, who opposed ending them, who now want us to get involved in every other troubled spot in the world that comes along where we might swagger in and act tough.   They never seem to worry enough about the cost of that part of it.

What's behind my tirade?    An article by journalist H. A. Goodman, reprinted in the Huffington Post, reminding us of what happened when the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014 came to the senate for a vote just last February.

The bill had the backing of all the veterans organizations, the strong support of the Senate Veterans Committee, chaired by Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT),   It would have done many things, among them a major reduction in the long waits that have erupted as a "scandal" of the Obama administration's "ineptness."

So what happened?    All the Democrats voted for it, plus four Republicans;   41 Republicans voted against it.  But the resulting 54-41 did not reach the 60 vote threshold to advance it for a yes/no vote.   In other words, the Republicans used the filibuster to kill it.  

Their reasons?    (1)  "This is not a time to spend money we don't have."   (2)  The bill did not include sanctions for Iran that Republicans had demanded be included.

And now these same Republicans turn around and say that our veterans are not getting the care they need because of Democrats' incompetence of management.    In fact, they must be managing pretty well to handle a 50% increase in patient load with only a 9% increase in doctors employed full time.

Republicans, "J'accuse !"    Shame on you for failing to support our veterans;  and shame on you for then blaming the president for not doing his job of taking care of our veterans.

Ralph