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The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is currently investigating allegations of whistleblower reprisal from 37 different Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) employees in 19 states, The Daily Caller has learned. OSC is investigating allegations that VA retaliated against whistleblowers on cases involving “improper” health-care scheduling. VA is currently under fire after it was revealed that a secret waiting list kept at a Phoenix, Arizona VA medical facility led to preventable veteran deaths. A VA employee in one of the cases alleged that he/she was slapped with a proposed seven-day suspension, a lowered performance evaluation and reassignment after reporting scheduling...

On Thursday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel, former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) discussed a number of issues related to the news of the day with host Sean Hannity including President Barack Obama and his perceived weaknesses, the friction between the GOP establishment and the Tea Party and her role in the political process. But she also took on the scandal surrounding the Veterans Administration hospitals that has resulted in a number of deaths for American military veterans. (Video at Breitbart.com)

Trying to get details

Today, Governor Rick Scott announced plans to file a lawsuit establishing the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration’s (AHCA) authority to inspect federal VA hospitals in Florida, and to stop the federal veterans affairs agency from obstructing state actions. Governor Scott said, “As the chief health policy and planning entity for the state that licenses, inspects, and investigates consumer complaints, AHCA should be allowed access to federal VA hospitals to inspect their processes and their facilities. On seven separate occasions at six federal VA hospitals, however, state inspectors have been blocked by federal officials from carrying out their mission of...

Imagine the press letting a Republican or conservative try to get away with trying to avoid uncondtionally calling something as infuriating and outrageous as the Veterans Administration waiting list scandal a real scandal. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did that on Monday (HT Patterico and Real Clear Politics) in an interview with Vox's Ezra Klein, who naturally let it slide right on by:

During a testy and at times emotional four-hour hearing late Wednesday night, an official with the Department of Veterans Affairs told the House Veterans Affairs Committee that reports of secret waiting lists at the Phoenix Health Care System are false. “I was not able to identify any lists that I thought were secret,” the VA’s Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Clinical Operations, Dr. Thomas Lynch, told members Wednesday. Author Sarah Mimms is a staff correspondent for National Journal Daily, covering Congress. Previously at National Journal, she served as senior analyst for the Hotline, where she covered federal and...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This interim report provides an overview of our ongoing review at the Phoenix Health Care System (HCS), identifies the allegations we have substantiated to date, and provides recommendations that VA should implement immediately. Allegations at the Phoenix HCS include gross mismanagement of VA resources and criminal misconduct by VA senior hospital leadership, creating systemic patient safety issues and possible wrongful deaths. While our work is not complete, we have substantiated that significant delays in access to care negatively impacted the quality of care at this medical facility. We initiated this review in response to allegations first reported to...

Navy veteran Ken Senft turned to the Department of Veterans Affairs for medical care in 2011 after his private insurance grew too costly. It could have been a fatal mistake, he now says. A few years ago, the 65-year-old had a lesion on his head. He went to a VA clinic near his home outside Phoenix, but he said the doctor told him it could be two years before he might get an appointment with a dermatologist.So he paid out of pocket to see a private physician. Turns out, he had cancer. […] A probe of operations at the Phoenix...

For years, employees at a Texas VA complained that their bosses were cooking the books. For years, the VA insisted there was no widespread wrongdoing. Emails and VA memos obtained exclusively by The Daily Beast provide what is among the most comprehensive accounts yet of how high-level VA hospital employees conspired to game the system. It shows not only how they manipulated hospital wait lists but why—to cover up the weeks and months veterans spent waiting for needed medical care. If those lag times had been revealed, it would have threatened the executives’ bonus pay. What’s worse, the documents show...

A preliminary report released Wednesday found "serious conditions" at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs facility, including hundreds of veterans who were never placed on an official wait list and faulty scheduling practices that meant some veterans would never see a doctor. "We identified an additional 1,700 veterans who were waiting for a primary care appointment but were not on the [electronic wait list,]" the report from the VA inspector general said. "Most importantly, these veterans were and continue to be at risk of being forgotten or lost in Phoenix [healthcare system's] convoluted scheduling process. As a result, these veterans may never...

A report released Wednesday says the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General has discovered 1,700 veterans in the VA’s Phoenix Health Care System (HCS) who are seeking medical treatment, but have yet to be put on a wait list by the VA. That finding is a sign that the VA is continuing to manipulate wait-time data to give the appearance that veterans are not waiting very long to receive health treatment. The VA healthcare scandal started with reports out of Phoenix that said veterans were not being put on the electronic wait list until it was known that...

Often there is one iconic picture that captures the essence of a Presidential administration; Gerald Ford falling, Richard Nixon entering the helicopter, Ronald Reagan riding a horse. The above image is the one history will use for the Obama administration. I was going to put this up as a Most Wanted and then I decided against it. I wanted to once more emphasize what a deceitful lying sack of manure our President is and leave it out for a while so the stench can find its way into the nostrils of the agnostic left. By now we all know about...

It depends on what the meaning of 'scandal' is. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi explained in an interview with Vox founder Ezra Klein that the situation surrounding the Department of Veterans Affairs wasn’t quite a “scandal” in the official sense of the word. “I think anytime our men and women in uniform are not served in a manner they deserve, you could perhaps call it ‘a scandal,’ because it’s scandalous,” she hedged. “Whether its ‘a scandal’ with intention and the rest of that the evidence remains to be seen.” Reports from agency whistleblowers and the mainstream media indicate that veterans...

In his weekly address, President Obama referred to care for veterans as part of a "sacred trust to all who've served." He said our nation has to do "much more … to make sure all our veterans get the care they deserve." The comments come amid criticism of the President Obama's Department of Veterans Affairs has been treating veterans. And the comments come just days before Memorial Day. "[L]et’s keep working to make sure that our country upholds our sacred trust to all who’ve served. In recent weeks, we’ve seen again how much more our nation has to do to...

The Obama administration said Saturday it will allow more veterans to get health care outside Veterans Affairs facilities, following recent revelations about long waits for treatment and purported secret lists that hid backlogs. […] Democratic and Republican lawmakers have pressed for the policy change as the VA confronts the allegations about employees falsifying appointment records to cover up delays in care and about veterans dying while awaiting treatment at VA centers. …

For the left, the Department of Veterans Affairs is how health care is ideally supposed to work. No insurance companies, no private doctors, no competition — just the government and the patient. Paul Krugman, The New York Times columnist, has held up the VA as a model for the entire country. The Washington Monthly ran a famous article in 2005 arguing that the VA was leading the way for U.S. health care. The socialist senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, is such a reflexive defender that in an instantly notorious interview on CNN he pooh-poohed the burgeoning scandal that may involve...

May 22, 2014 12:39 PM N.M. VA Hospital Assigned Vets to Doctors Who No Longer Worked There By Andrew Johnson A new report from NBC News reveals that a Veterans Affairs hospital in Albuquerque, N.M., assigned patients to unavailable doctors and treated patients rudely when they inquired about the problem. One veteran said she stopped going to the VA after she was badly treated following her diagnosis of breast cancer. “Because I didn’t get a response and they didn’t seem to care, I really wasn’t comfortable going there,” said Retired Air Force lieutenant colonel Renee Sussman. She recounted a telephone...

The White House says Americans can't draw any conclusions yet about just how screwed up is the Department of Veterans Affairs medical care system. Well, yes, Americans can. And if they have any sense — always a debatable proposition — Americans will. One conclusion we can draw is an old, familiar one: No matter what the issue or activity, bureaucracy's first and strongest instinct is to protect itself in the face of a perceived threat. Another conclusion is probably just dawning on those Americans with the wit to see it, because so very few of us have had a brush...

... In 2010 -- four years ago! -- the deputy undersecretary of the VA wrote a nine-page memo saying that in order to cover up their continued delays, various parts of the VA system were engaged in "gaming strategies" -- in effect, lying. The General Accounting Office and VA inspector generals wrote reports saying the practice was widespread. One would have thought that would have set off alarm bells at both the VA and the White House. Where was the anger then? There were some internal investigations, but they never went anywhere and there was little apparent sense of urgency....

Karl Rove is now attacking Barack Obama’s record — as a senator. Appearing Thursday night on Fox News, the Republican strategist said he doesn’t know whether Obama “was paying much attention” while he served on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. “President Obama was a member of the Senate veterans committee. He very rarely showed up at those meetings,” Rove told “On The Record” host Greta Van Susteren. “It would be interesting for your staff to go take a look at that but he — these issues about scheduling and the backlog, these were discussed at Senate veterans committee meetings and...