Posted on 06/25/2014 4:41:22 AM PDT by Kaslin
Imagine how much better off America's veterans would be if the federal government spent more time delivering actual care and less time compiling tyrannical lists. The death-inducing secret waiting lists for patients are just the tip of the iceberg.
Did you know, for example, that the VA keeps a database on "disgruntled" and "disruptive" vets that results in arbitrarily restricted care?
Disabled Air Force veteran and veterans advocate/attorney Benjamin Krause has been raising questions about the system for months and warning his peers. Under the VA policy on "patient record flags" (PRFs), federal bureaucrats can classify vets as "threats" based on assessments of their "difficult," "annoying" and "non-compliant" behavior.
The VA manual says the flags "are used to alert Veterans Health Administration medical staff and employees of patients whose behavior and characteristics may pose a threat either to their safety, the safety of other patients, or compromise the delivery of quality health care."
That last phrase is priceless. Untold numbers of vets are dead, and legions more have languished because of the VA's failure to deliver "quality health care." The Office of Special Counsel just confirmed to President Obama this week that vets across the country were exposed to contaminated drinking water, dirty surgical tools, untrained doctors and neglectful nurses -- and that whistleblowers were retaliated against or ignored.
Yet, the VA's soulless paper-pushers seem more preoccupied with flagging and punishing "disruptive" vets who have dared to complain about their disgraceful treatment and abuse.
Get this: Among examples of patients' behavior referred to the VA's "Disruptive Behavior Committees" (yes, that's what they're called): venting "frustration about VA services and/or wait times, threatening lawsuits or to have people fired, and frequent unwarranted visits to the emergency department or telephone calls to facility staff."
As Krause explains, the Disruptive Behavior Committees are secret panels "that decide whether or not to flag veterans without providing due process first. The veteran then has his or her right of access to care restricted without prior notice."
Veterans need look no further than the IRS witch hunts for reason to fear abuse of this monitoring system. The definition of "disruptive" is completely arbitrary. That's not just my opinion. The VA inspector general concluded last spring that the bureaucracy "does not have a comprehensive definition of what constitutes disruptive behavior."
Krause writes: "While I am sure some veterans need some form of a flag, I am also aware of numerous veterans who were unfairly targeted for a variety of unreasonable reasons." Krause told me this week that "the bean-counters" may have flagged at least one veteran for being "too expensive." And "trouble-makers" who are educated and know their rights are especially vulnerable. It's absolutely chilling.
"This discussion of patient record flags has me fired up," Krause explained, "because of the clear unconstitutional nature of the program. It reminds me of the old Communist techniques used to keep Soviet citizens in check, since I am aware of more than a few veterans who are flagged merely because of their threat to sue VA."
As one disabled veteran, Lawrence Kelley, told me after he learned of a flag on his record after he became vocal about his veterans rights advocacy: "Once you complain, you are on their hit list forever." VA officials refused to treat him and physically evicted him from a facility. He's now challenging the flag.
This is an "intimidation tactic," pure and simple, Krause warns. And Obama's Department of Homeland Security Federal Protective Service is now providing muscle to deter sick vets from protesting in front of VA hospitals.
More of your tax-subsidized thugocracy at work.
That whole system needs to be disbanded.. completely. Give our vets vouchers for treatment in real hospitals.
Enough of this third-world crap. Our vets deserve FAR better.
If you go back to 1932 when it was created....it was considered a failure throughout the first ten years, and was simply a method that congress could allocate funding back to their districts for construction and services. It’s never functioned as intended. I agree....we’d be better off with some type of Medicare-Plus program and just put all vets onto the deal once they leave the service or retire. Congress won’t agree to this because it strikes a method to return funding to their district. Both Republican and Democrat members are guilty of this.
Doesn’t surprise me in the least. I have fought the jackasses for over 20 years on disability and get crap from them, so I am probably on one of their “hit and die” lists. I am a retired United States Army sergeant who fought and bled on the battlefield in Vietnam. I DO NOT trust my government or even the US Army or Pentagon to do what is right by veterans. I know that we are looked up as the enemy now. Not the Muzzie murdering thugs, we vets.
“Give our vets vouchers for treatment in real hospitals.”
A lot of what they do is deal with substance abuse.
The illegals and welfare folks can walk into any real hospital and get quality care immediately.
The men and women who have risked their lives for this country have to wait months for care.
Enough of this third-world crap. Our vets deserve FAR better.
ABSOLUTELY.
TOTALITARIANS will not give up control. Those who fought to keep them in power are the leading examples of what they have FORCED on the rest of the population with Obamacare, aka TOTALITARIANCARE.
Choice? No.
Freedom? No
Liberty? No
if gubmint was a WMV it would be on death row....
Semper Watching!
Dick.G: AMERICAN!
aka: Gunny G
***
My fear is that the dismantling of the VA health care system, will put us all on Obamacare. THAT is one thing I would not like to see happen.
I suppose my Dad was flagged. He called his Senators. He was trying to get the results of his tests to see if his leukemia had come back. It had, but the VA never, never gave him the results.
So, if you don’t kiss the bureaucrat’s ass, they stop treating you? Government employees are out of hand. They withhold earned benefits because someone complains about them? That’s criminal.
We are the Soviet Union. Our Democrat Party is just the old Communist Party.
Dad’s been dead nearly three years now. The ironic thing is that he was a Democrat. He cried about his dead buddies. I’m ashamed of our government.
I share your feelings RetiredArmy, I have served my country one way or another for almost 40 years and never thought I would ever say I have lost trust in it, but I have.
They also flag former employees, too.
The VA is just the warm-up act for 0bamacare.
I hate to break it to you, but you are already there. The VA health system is the beta version of Obamacare - but without the bug-fix feedback loop.
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