General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRW Hypocrites Attack Obama For NOT Acting Just Like A Dictator
Some right wing shill published this laughable in Karl Rove's online rag arguing for Obama to use an Executive Order to "fix" the problems with the VA waiting list length.....they get away with it because they see the national media are refusing to report on Republicans blocking a medical aid bill just 3 months ago. The hypocrisy is just too damn obvious to say out loud, and it is of course not mentioned in this article either.
There is some mighty, mighty media propaganda going on in freedom loving free speech inspired America these days, the corporations have pulled out all the stops to prevent popular progressive ideas from taking off with the usual dose of half truths, silence and deflection, a trick they perfected in the propaganda run up to the Iraq war.
I see also how these amateurish writers and opinion-ators need to mention the Obamacare website problems as some kind of helpful insight into the current issue.
Dullards and paid charlatans, all of them.
___________________________
"President Barack Obama wants to talk about flexing his administrative and executive power to do more. Instead, he got stuck talking about a clear administrative and executive failure that, at least so far, he hasnt done much about.
And this ones no contained, bureaucratic flub. The problems at the Veterans Affairs Department have engulfed an entire Cabinet department and may have left hundreds of thousands of veterans waiting for care, and as many as 40 of them dead.
The latest stumbles have been a fresh reminder of the story line the White House has been trying to recover from since the fall, when the Obamacare website flopped, the key poll numbers about the presidents competence collapsed so deeply that theyre still far from recovering, and Democrats went into an apocalyptic panic about the midterms."
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/barack-obama-veterans-affairs-scandal-inaction-107029.html
okaawhatever
(9,462 posts)services it provides by tens of millions. When that isn't enough you have to either increase the size of the workforce dealing with the patients,or refer the patients to private providers. There are only two ways to handle it. In the past that is what they've done with budget increases. From a press release in 2012:
WASHINGTON Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki today announced that the department would add approximately 1,600 mental health clinicians to include nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers as well as nearly 300 support staff to its existing workforce of 20,590 mental health staff as part of an ongoing review of mental health operations.
SNIP
Last year, VA provided specialty mental health services to 1.3 million Veterans. Since 2009, VA has increased the mental health care budget by 39 percent. Since 2007, VA has seen a 35 percent increase in the number of Veterans receiving mental health services, and a 41 percent increase in mental health staff.
VA has enhanced services by integrating mental health care into the primary care setting, developed an extensive suicide prevention program, and increased the number of Veterans Readjustment Counseling Centers (Vet Centers). VAs Veteran Crisis Line has received more than 600,000 calls resulting in over 21,000 rescues of Veterans in immediate crisis.
http://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=2302
Problem is, that wasn't even enough. They have increased their staffing commensurate with the budget, but it hasn't been enough.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)have back, that is the GOP love of war in action.