Bush’s Record on VA Funding

[rdean]

Since you're bringing up George W. Bush (what a surprise)...

....what is Bush's record for vets dying while waiting for VA health care?

Considering the state of the hospitals, I suspect not very good.

Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility

Read it and weep. That's when Republicans still controlled the entire government.

And remember, the bulk of the maimed from the Iraq fiasco and Afghanistan still hadn't even come back to this country.

Bush and the GOP - the gift that just keeps giving and giving and giving...............

 

[Clementine]

Why not discuss Nixon's VA funding...or Ford's, or fucking Adams???


500 benefit claims shredded?


How about 1.5 MILLION ????

The point is we're taking about THIS ADMINISTRATION'S failures.

You left-nuts have bemoaned Obamacare in saying that it didn't go far enough.....that you would have preferred a 'single payer' system/
Well, guess what, ass-hats? That's exactly what the fuck the VA is.
THERE is your single payer system.
This is what you fucking wanted?
Waiting lists and hidden and/or deleted waiting lists with people dying while they wait for care?

Ah, hell, let's try it out on our nation's heroes first...see how they fare.

because with everything these days you need context. Obama is to blame for doing very little. So is Bush. You can hold Obama's feet to the fire while not being so disingenuous about what Bush did. Blowing it off doesnt solve the issue. How about having some personal Integrity about the issue.

More to that point, Its pathetic, Pathetic that you people are making this into a political football about who did what. Just solve the damn issue and be done with it. But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO we have to toss our partisan dicks around and wave our flgs saying we love the troops the most..

Grow up. Bush did jack shit for the troops, Own it. Obama ignored and appointed or continued on the guy who failed to sovle these issues. Own it.

Context?? You're one stupid fuck! This is all the contex anyone needs - ObamA was told about the problem 6 years ago and did nothing, as a result people died on his watch. Thats not Bush's fault, its your messiah's fault. Own it. And as far as you complaining people are politicizing this, you're stupid fuck. If ever a legimate reason to criticize an administration it's when vets die unecisary deaths on thier watch, but according to retards like you the president is always off limits.

They don't give Bush the benefit of the doubt ever. Obama was on the VA committee during his senator years. Of course, he was off visiting other countries, preparing for a presidential run and voting present, but he should have been aware of what was going on. He should have known better than Bush since he was on the committee. While campaigning in 2008, Obama bought up the issue with care for veterans and vowed to fix the problem. As with everything else, instead of making things better, they are worse than ever.

 

[whitehall]

Keep in mind the secret death lists that Orwellian Obama bureaucrats kept in the VA in order to terminate patients for federal money saving bonuses. Imagine how many Orwellian bonuses federal bureaucrats can crank up when they get to terminate civilian senior citizens in Obamacare..

 

[edthecynic]

President Bush has remained committed to ensuring all veterans receive the care and support they need from the Federal government. Under his leadership, the Administration has:
Dramatically Increased Funding To Support And Care For Those Who Have Served Our Nation

• Increased funding for veterans' medical care by more than 115 percent since 2001.
• FY 2009 funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) totals more than $97 billion, nearly double the level of funding when the President took office and the highest level of support for veterans in history.
• Provided more than $6 billion to modernize and expand VA medical facilities and more than $1 billion over the past three years to support traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder treatment and research.
• Honored our veterans with a hallowed, final resting place by implementing and fully funding the largest expansion in the national cemetery system since the Civil War.

Improved Care And Services For Wounded Warriors

• Created the Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors – co-chaired by former Senator Bob Dole and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala – to ensure that wounded service members and veterans receive quality care and services and can live lives of hope, promise, and dignity. Nearly all of the Commission's recommendations have already been implemented, such as:
  • Expanded training, screening, and staff resources to help service members and veterans suffering from mental health disorders.
  • Created a joint Recovery Coordinator Program for seriously injured service members.
  • Initiated a pilot program to replace the cumbersome system of two separate disability examinations with a single, comprehensive medical exam.
• Established a Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury and expanded VA's polytrauma system of care to 21 network sites and clinic support teams to provide state-of-the-art treatment to injured veterans at facilities closer to their homes.

Ensured Those Who Have Served Our Country Receive The Benefits They Deserve

• Called for and signed a GI Bill for the 21st century, which expanded education benefits for service members and veterans and made it easier for those who defend our Nation to transfer unused education benefits to their spouses or children.
• Increased career counseling services for returning veterans, particularly those wounded in combat.
• Signed legislation that increased from two to five years a combat veteran's eligibility to enroll for lifetime VA medical care and allowed family members of injured service members to take additional time away from their jobs to care for their loved ones.
• Signed legislation to ensure military retirees with severe disabilities receive both their military retired pay and their VA disability compensation.
• Helped more than 1.9 million veterans enroll in the VA health care system since 2001.
• Reduced the average length of time to process a veteran's disability claim to under 180 days, down from 230 days when the President took office.

Worked To Decrease The Number Of Homeless Veterans

• Expanded Federal grants and worked extensively with faith-based and community organizations to help homeless veterans.
• Cut the number of homeless veterans by nearly 40 percent from 2001 to 2007.

THE BUSH RECORD - FACT SHEET: The Bush Administration Has Provided Unprecedented Support for Our Veterans

Bush typically taking credit for what he opposed when Congress passed it over his objections!!!

Every Bush budget cut funding for the vets, but Congress increased funding over Bush's threatened vetoes.

BobGeiger.com: Democrats Oppose Bush Cuts To Veterans, Demand Increase In Medical Care Funding

Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Democrats Oppose Bush Cuts To Veterans, Demand Increase In Medical Care Funding

The Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee last week renounced attempts by the White House to raise fees for Veterans receiving medical care and recommended an increase in funding in the administration's fiscal year 2008 budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs medical care allocation.

Senate Democrats rejected three Bush administration proposals designed to reduce funding requirements, through increased out-of-pocket fees for Veterans, and by deterring certain categories of Veterans from using the VA system, including the following proposed in the 2008 budget:

An increase in prescription drug co-payments from $8 to $15 for "middle-income" veterans.

An annual enrollment fee of $250 to $750 for veterans whose families make $50,000 a year or more.

Eliminating the practice of offsetting VA first-party co-payment debts with collections from insurance companies.

"Once again, the Administration is suggesting that we ask Veterans to pay more out of their own pockets. This is unacceptable," said Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Daniel Akaka (D-HI). "We remain committed in opposition to the policy proposals to impose higher costs on veterans."

Akaka and the Democrats countered by proposing a $2.9 billion increase in funding to care for Veterans and troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan -- all in the wake of the scandal involving treatment of Veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

"We believe this is the total amount necessary to treat all eligible veterans from World War II until the present time and to maintain the quality of VA medical services through the upcoming fiscal year," said Akaka.

"This amount would also provide the VA with resources to absorb the thousands of service members presently on medical hold at Walter Reed and in other military facilities. There is no question we must ensure these brave men and women are provided the best care possible."

It will be hard for this to fall on deaf ears even in this White House with the black-eye they have taken on the treatment of troops at Walter Reed and Akaka urged his Senate colleagues "to understand that at the heart of any solution to improve care is increasing resources to match demand and to ensure the facilities themselves are up to par."

Akaka and Senate Democrats -- with support from Bernie Sanders (I-VT) -- cited specifically the need to increase funding for treatment of traumatic brain injures and VA mental health programs. The Veterans' Affairs Committee is demanding an additional $300 million for treatment of brain injuries and an increase of $693 million over the Administration's request for Veterans' mental health programs.

"Traumatic brain injuries are turning out to be the hallmark of this war. We simply must ensure that VA has the resources to do more than just keep up but to become a leader in brain injury care," said Akaka, adding that greater funding for mental health care is "…essential to guarantee timely access to mental health services for veterans of the global war on terror and prior conflicts, including the Vietnam war. We have heard too many stories already of veterans in crisis who were unable to see a mental health professional because of a lack of staff or beds at VA facilities."

 

[JoeB131]

The problems with the VA isn't a lack of funding. It's government inefficiency. Salaried cardiologists were seeing two patients a day while those in private practice were seeing eight.

Government employees are notoriously lazy and wasteful. Much more than in private industry. This doesn't change whether it's the post office or a government hospital.

How many cardiology patients does the VA treat? It seems you are cherry-picking one stat.

96,000 americans die every year because of medical mistakes made in private and public hospitals.

Does the VA need reform? Yup.

Is this the Holy Grail of White House Scandals?

Nope. Not really.

 

[mudwhistle]

The Top Ten list of excuses to date, and those that will be forthcoming in the weeks to follow:

1. I just heard about this on the news the other day
2. I'm mad as hell about this, but I want to wait for the investigation to be completed before I act
3. Bush cut funding and we're going to do what we can to correct the situation
4. The GOP is trying to politicize this. It's nothing but a witch-hunt
5. What difference at this time does it make
6. The Koch Brothers invented the whole thing out of hole-cloth
7. We should be talking about jobs.....not the VA
8. What we're concerned with now is Climate Change and gun-violence
9. More vets are dying? Well, we just heard about that on the news the other day
10. Well, we're really mad now.......

 

[bedowin62]

Bush this; Bush that

the loser Left will NEVER own up to the failures on its watch

 

[AvgGuyIA]

This is why Obozo is not a leader. He never takes responsibility and always pushes the blame onto others - particularly the Honorable President George W Bush.

 

[mudwhistle]

Since you're bringing up George W. Bush (what a surprise)...

....what is Bush's record for vets dying while waiting for VA health care?

Considering the state of the hospitals, I suspect not very good.

Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility

Read it and weep. That's when Republicans still controlled the entire government.

And remember, the bulk of the maimed from the Iraq fiasco and Afghanistan still hadn't even come back to this country.

Bush and the GOP - the gift that just keeps giving and giving and giving...............

So now you're saying that socialized medicine is a bad idea?????

 

[mudwhistle]

Obama is mad as hell, but he still found time yesterday to host yet another motherfucking team in the White House.......

 

[The T]

Keep in mind the secret death lists that Orwellian Obama bureaucrats kept in the VA in order to terminate patients for federal money saving bonuses. Imagine how many Orwellian bonuses federal bureaucrats can crank up when they get to terminate civilian senior citizens in Obamacare..

"Death Panels". In ObamaCare, it's IPAB.

 

[Rocko]

Obama knew about this problem before his tenure as president and didn't handle the problem sufficiently. Period. Only an uber-hack can try to deflect this shortcoming on to Bush. Period.

 

[mudwhistle]

Obama knew about this problem before his tenure as president and didn't handle the problem sufficiently. Period. Only an uber-hack can try to deflect this shortcoming on to Bush. Period.

The point is as long as government remains like it is today this type of thing will always happen.

Government is practically incapable of delivering services like the private sector can. As long as government continues to feed it's massive bureaucracy, it will never have the money to afford getting enough good doctors because they don't consider it a good investment.

The private sector depends on service. Government depends on taxes. Everything else doesn't begin to matter.

 

[Rocko]

Obama knew about this problem before his tenure as president and didn't handle the problem sufficiently. Period. Only an uber-hack can try to deflect this shortcoming on to Bush. Period.

The point is as long as government remains like it is today this type of thing will always happen.

Government is practically incapable of delivering services like the private sector can. As long as government continues to feed it's massive bureaucracy, it will never have the money to afford getting enough good doctors because they don't consider it a good investment.

The private sector depends on service. Government depends on taxes. Everything else doesn't begin to matter.

I agree with you on a larger scale, but in the VA's case it is IMO a case of administrative failure. Maybe even in a program like the VA government will always fall short, but I truly believe if handled better people didn't have to die waiting, and there's no excuse for the cover up.

 

[Sallow]

Bush this; Bush that

the loser Left will NEVER own up to the failures on its watch

Well, the world trade center construction is still ongoing some 13 years after 9/11.

Was that a failure of the "left" as well?

 

[Edgetho]

FLASHBACK!



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/opinion/krugman-vouchers-for-veterans-and-other-bad-ideas.html

American health care is remarkably diverse. In terms of how care is paid for and delivered, many of us effectively live in Canada, some live in Switzerland, some live in Britain, and some live in the unregulated market of conservative dreams. One result of this diversity is that we have plenty of home-grown evidence about what works and what doesn’t.

Naturally, then, politicians — Republicans in particular — are determined to scrap what works and promote what doesn’t. And that brings me to Mitt Romney’s latest really bad idea, unveiled on Veterans Day: to partially privatize the Veterans Health Administration (V.H.A.).

What Mr. Romney and everyone else should know is that the V.H.A. is a huge policy success story, which offers important lessons for future health reform.


Many people still have an image of veterans’ health care based on the terrible state of the system two decades ago. Under the Clinton administration, however, the V.H.A. was overhauled, and achieved a remarkable combination of rising quality and successful cost control. Multiple surveys have found the V.H.A. providing better care than most Americans receive, even as the agency has held cost increases well below those facing Medicare and private insurers. Furthermore, the V.H.A. has led the way in cost-saving innovation, especially the use of electronic medical records.

What’s behind this success? Crucially, the V.H.A. is an integrated system, which provides health care as well as paying for it. So it’s free from the perverse incentives created when doctors and hospitals profit from expensive tests and procedures, whether or not those procedures actually make medical sense. And because V.H.A. patients are in it for the long term, the agency has a stronger incentive to invest in prevention than private insurers, many of whose customers move on after a few years.

And yes, this is “socialized medicine” — although some private systems, like Kaiser Permanente, share many of the V.H.A.’s virtues. But it works — and suggests what it will take to solve the troubles of U.S. health care more broadly.


Yet Mr. Romney believes that giving veterans vouchers to spend on private insurance would somehow yield better results. Why?

Well, Republicans have a thing about vouchers. Earlier this year Representative Paul Ryan famously introduced a plan to convert Medicare into a voucher system; Mr. Romney’s Medicare proposal follows similar lines. The claim, always, is the one Mr. Romney made last week, that “private sector competition” would lower costs.

 

[JoeB131]

Why does every Republican plan involve giving money to rich people?

 

[Sallow]

Obama knew about this problem before his tenure as president and didn't handle the problem sufficiently. Period. Only an uber-hack can try to deflect this shortcoming on to Bush. Period.

Well no.

Obama entered office with an economy in freefall, 2 ongoing wars, one of the most dangerous terrorists on the loose, and an opposition party committed to just one thing, making him a one term President.

You might have a little traction on this had the VA been the only thing on the plate and he was getting a little help.

But as it stands? Republicans only interest is removing the President from office. That's it.

That haven't done shit to help.

Actually they've done worse. They've closed down government and committed it to austerity.

 

[bedowin62]

Bush is stil president isnt he?

he must be; listen to the left-wing nutjobs whine


it really is that simple

 

[Rocko]

Bush this; Bush that

the loser Left will NEVER own up to the failures on its watch

Well, the world trade center construction is still ongoing some 13 years after 9/11.

Was that a failure of the "left" as well?

What does that have to do with this?? Nothing.

People died on Obama's watch, after Bush warned him. That is a fact. I don't see how in any way this administration is not the only one to blame.