Congress moves in wrong direction to correct VA problems
Stars & Stripes says that “Obama and Congress move to address VA firestorm” but it’s more like a bowel movement than meaningful reform (emphasis is mine);
The top official for veterans’ health care resigned Friday, and House Republicans scheduled a vote for Wednesday on legislation that would give Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki greater authority to fire or demote senior executives and administrators at the agency and its 152 medical centers.
Yeah, but what about removing Shinseki? When everything about the agency stinks, who removes the rotting head?
The Veterans Affairs Department has failed at absolutely everything that it’s done from the days that it couldn’t pay college benefits in a timely manner under the new Post 9-11 GI Bill. The agency had more than a year to figure that out before folks started getting kicked out of college and defaulting on their rent and food bills. The only thing they could come up was excuses.
That was a failure of leadership and that failure has continued for years, through the million-dollar conferences, the over-priced satire videos, the ridiculously large backlog of benefits claims and the more recent, but years-long healthcare issues.
Now even Congress is making excuses for Shinseki’s incompetence. Veterans and tax payers are awaiting some sort of accountability, but it looks like we’ll get none. Even the overseers won’t admit that Shinseki is the problem.
I even remember when Senator Murray asked for accountability from the VA in regards to the number of former POWs receiving benefits from the agency in stark contrast to the actual list at the the Department of Defense and the VA responded that they had only discovered two phony POWs, while we continue to find more every month. There are only a score of Desert Storm POWs, but the VA is paying benefits to hundreds and won’t admit to it. Who knows how many Vietnam and Korean War scams are being run against the agency? We even offered to do the work for the VA and they refused. I guess because they have such a stellar record of doing the stuff they should.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
To be fair, Jonn – Shinseki isn’t all of the VA’s problem. IMO a fairly large number of it’s senior executives need to accompany Shinseki out the door.
My concern with this is that it allows an incompetent political hack to “buy time” by replacing people he/she doesn’t like, whether or not they’re doing a good job. It would buy Shinseki some additional time – my guess is 2 or 3 years (1 year to replace a bunch of folks, followed by a year or two of “time for the changes to work”). He’d almost certainly be leaving in 2 or 3 years anyway.
The problem is that he’d likely replace those people with folks no more competent than are there today – and in some cases, with political hacks who are even worse.
Give the NEXT VA Secretary this authority – not the current one. IMO he’s a big part of the problem, and needs to go NOW.
I agree, Hondo. I don’t consider myself a smart guy, but it seems to me the problem is bigger than Shinseki. He’s simply a political figurehead, put in place in pathetic attempt to make the agency look better. I agree with Jonn that he should go and his replacement given the power that Congress wants to give him. But the problem is even deeper. It lies in those senior executives and rolls down through the ranks. It’s endemic to every government agency in the US. It’s entrenched executives who aren’t held accountable for their actions. They don’t have to produce anything of merit to retain their positions and as long as they make the bucks, the status quo is good enough. I’m not saying that every executive or government worker is like that, but enough are that it throws a serious monkey wrench into the workings of government and can, and does, destroy innovation and progress. Until many of those senior executives are fired, nothing will get done. Their feet need to be held to the fire by a strong leader, not a political hack who is in way over his head.
If it’s essentially impossible to fire a civil service employee, how does anyone ever fix this problem?
Not to mention the legal shitstorm that the AGFE (Associated Federation of Government Employees, the Government Employee’s union)will put out over the incompetents’ being canned?
Joe: There is a time-honored method for ridding a gov’t workplace of malingers and malcontents. It’s called promotion.
Air Cav: That may be precisely why we now find ourselves in this mess. Everyone involved has already been “promoted.” 🙁
It’s time for a revision of the Civil Service regulations, union or no union.
It just gets worse and worse and worse. And it will get even worse, until the house can be thoroughly cleaned.
Damn. I ran out of the er combo at the worst time. I’ve since borrowed a set. You know where it goes. Thanks.
Why isn’t this privately ran or for that matter just subsidize private healthcare costs of treatment instead of creating a government ran disaster zone?
I don’t understand why veterans have to travel to a VA hospital to great treatment when most likely they could get faster and/or better quality treatment from a private hospital. Especially when you always see claims/travel lines in the VA hospitals.
Private hospitals charge out the ass for two aspirin, a 4×4 gauze pad and wrap, stitches, ect. So when talk of privatization surfaces, I would have to argue against it. If private run org’s are doing so well, why is it they are reducing staff, cutting costs and raising their prices?
Leave the VA system in place, remove the dead weight union or not because, if somebody is slacking off, somebody else has to make it up so get rid of the slackers.
Union rules my ass, if the unions cannot keep their management in line, how the flock do the rank and file stay in line? If any one of these people were working for me, screwing around, losing records, treating vets with dis-respect and generally being wothless shits, they’d be cleaning out their desks, everything boxed searched for records and other contraband then escorted out of the building and off the property.