For all of you folks out there who still seem to think that it’s such a shit-hot idea to have the government in charge of your healthcare, I’d like to run a little something by ya. Suppose you needed a really important test. And then suppose, because everything would need to first successfully navigate through miles of governmental red tape, you were going to have to be placed on a waitlist. And then further suppose that because that waitlist eventually became too long, those who had been placed the list first, were simply purged off the list so as to make the list shorter. And then, when you called to inquire about your status, on said list, you were told that you would need to re-request that all-important test.
Now how many of you are now thinking that there is absolutely no way that something like that could actually happen here in the good ol’ U. S. of A. Well, as we recently found out, that is exactly something that can happen here. Because according to a former VA employee, that’s exactly what the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) did to reduce its backlog. What this agency decided to do to cure its problem was to literally destroy thousands of veteran’s medical files in what was a systematic attempt to eliminate backlogged veteran medical exam requests. Now I ask you, what other than some useless government agency would see this as being the best way to take care of a backlog problem?
Anyway, it was all because of a fella by the name of Oliver Mitchell, who’s a Marine veteran and former patient services assistant in the VA Greater Los Angeles Medical Center, that we even know that this is something that actually took place. And it was Mr. Mitchell who said in a recent interview, "The committee was called System Redesign and the purpose of the meeting was to figure out ways to correct the department’s efficiency. And one of the issues at the time was the backlog." Mitchell went on to say, "We just didn’t have the resources to conduct all of those exams." So, in typical government fashion, records, thousands of them, were simply destroyed. Voila, and just like that, no more backlog.
He said, "Basically we would get about 3,000 requests a month for [medical] exams, but in a 30-day period we only had the resources to do about 800. That rolls over to the next month and creates a backlog." And then he went on to say, "It’s a numbers thing. The waiting list counts against the hospitals efficiency. The longer the veteran waits for an exam that counts against the hospital as far as productivity is concerned." So, in an effort to at least give the appearance of improved productivity, thousands of medical records were simply destroyed. I’m just not sure how this would ever occur to someone as being a good idea. But then, we are talking about government employees after all.
This backlog problem goes all the way back to 2008, with some patients "waiting six to nine months for an exam" and the VA "didn’t know how to address the issue," Mitchell said. And then along comes Dr. Suzie El-Saden, the department chief for the VA Greater Los Angeles Radiology department. And it was this bimbo, or so we’re told, who initiated an "ongoing discussion in the department" to cancel exam requests and destroy veterans’ medical files so that no record of the exam requests would exist, thus reducing the backlog. Granted, the problem existed before Barry ever came onto the scene, but this moron’s plan was actually carried out during his administration’s management of VA.
Apparently Mr. Mitchell tried blowing the whistle on this scheme but the only thing he seemed to receive for doing so was first, a transfer out of his department, and then to eventually end up losing his job. He said, "I actually filed a complaint with the VA [Inspector General] IG and the office of special counsel. The IG requested if I had any documentation. They wanted names. I gave them [about] a thousand names." He added, "The list I turned into the IG went all the way back to 1997." He then said, "I filed the initial complaint with the IG … The IG, instead of doing their own investigation, just gave it to the facility and made them aware of my complaint." It’s called shooting the messenger.
Look, it’s pretty common knowledge, or at least it should be by now, that this is the way the government does business. So I’ll ask you again if you still think this whole Obamacare thing is anywhere near to being a good idea? Is this the level of treatment that you think anyone deserves? Let alone our veterans? And for crying out loud, if this cadre of scumbags thinks this is acceptable treatment for our veterans, what makes anyone think that the rest of us would be treated any differently? Come on folks, wake the Hell up! If we are going to have any hope of being able to crawl out from under all that Barry has heaped upon us, then we’re going to need to get rid of every Democrat we can this fall.
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