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2014-05-30 Government

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Posted by Glenmore 2014-05-30 11:25|| || Front Page|| [11132 views ] Top

#1 If this were to happen in a civilian non-government hospital, there would be criminal negligence charges filed against the hospital, director, managers and staff involved. The local DA and law enforcement would be crawling all over the hospital's records.

Obama sits, Holder doesn't act at all.

This is not done, not by a long shot. We need a real AG. And a real President - the buck stops there, whether you like it or not you piece os shit Obama.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-05-30 11:35|| 2014-05-30 11:35|| Front Page Top

#2 Once he leaves office, Holder should be (figuratively) hung up and beaten like a pnata, until the criminal activity he has allowed is knocked out into public view for all to see just how corrupt and incompetent he is.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-05-30 11:36|| 2014-05-30 11:36|| Front Page Top

#3 I work at a civilian, non-government hospital. There's no law preventing us from rearranging patient appointments, delaying return appointments, and lying to people about appointments.

There are, however, plenty of malpractice lawyers.

One of the many problems with the VA is that there is little, if any, external pressure for accountability. The VFW and Legion have proven that they can't provide that kind of pressure. Congress is marginal in that regard. Our current Attorney General is worse than John Mitchell.

And vets can't sue for malpractice.

So of course the VA system does what it does. It's done this since the end of World War II (at least). I've worked at three different VAs. I'm not surprised in the least.

Posted by Steve White 2014-05-30 12:04|| 2014-05-30 12:04|| Front Page Top

#4 One of the many problems with the VA government bureaucracy is that there is little, if any, external pressure for accountability.

FIFY

As a modest start, give the person in the hot seat the authority to capriciously and arbitrarily fire 12 people a year without challenge. Pour l'encouragement de autres! Go ahead and provide a 'due process' after the fact to claw back any retirement with the proviso that they prove they're as 'clean as Caesar's wife'.

Posted by Procopius2k 2014-05-30 13:02|| 2014-05-30 13:02|| Front Page Top

#5 Steve, as a civilian, you may think you are not under criminal law but civil (tort) law when it comes to this kind of action, but you may want to reconsider that thought. You may not be under specific legal requirement to not play scheduling games, et. But there is the concept of Negligence which does apply, even in a civilian situation. Criminal negligence is a 'misfeasance or 'nonfeasance' where the fault lies in the failure to foresee and so allow otherwise avoidable dangers to manifest. . As an MD or a nurse, your license is at risk with the state board if you delay care that results in the death or harm of the patient. And if it can be shown that you did so willfully and used deception with your patient, without regard to negative consequences, and it resulted in preventable and foreseeable harm, then you can be charged CRIMINALLY for criminal negligence in addition to any actions by the state BOM or BON (for nurses). There is also consideration for conspiracy in the coverup of the wrongdoing, as well as obstruction of justice if they are actively destroying or hiding documentation of the criminally negligent conduct. I have a feeling that as usual, the coverup may produce more criminal charges than the crime.

In a nutshell I think you are mistaken. Would you bet your license and imprisonment? Because even at a private hospital in private practice, if you systematically delay care to patients in contravention to hospital/practice policy, deceive the patients about it, lie to others about such practices (ex: Joint Commission [JCAHO], or the state licensing people), attempt to cover it up, then the action or inaction from you results in harm or death to the patients -- well, I don't see how you can avoid criminal prosecution if you have an honest DA, and this is especially so given the scope and magnitude of the harm done.

I am betting that criminal negligence is what will be charged in order to investigate this as a criminal, not civil, matter which it should be, but the biggest part of the investigation will be in criminal conspiracy to cover up the intentional negligence by the administrators and staff who concocted this crime against the nation's veterans.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-05-30 13:22|| 2014-05-30 13:22|| Front Page Top

#6 As for the VFW, it has been especially useless on this. At least the Legion (disclosure: Im PUFL), called for resignation and investigation from the start - and if you go back and look, for quite some time the Legion has been calling attention to the long wait times, delays in care, and other problems at the VA. The Legion has been very vocal. The problem isn't the legion, its the Obama administration has shown zero interest in the issue, and has ignored everyone that has been bringing this up.

As for the VFW? Useless. The VFW president was playing Obama kiss-ass, as were a large number of other veteran's organizations. I doubt the VFW will see dues from me when it comes time to renew next year.

I and others have said all along: the problem isn't money, nor is it professionalism on the part of the doctors, nurses and techs (the medical care, when available, is solid) - its accountability for the managers and directors. All the money in the world will not change a thing if you cannot hold people accountable for the results of their actions (or inactions).

Accountability and responsibility are the twin cures to this - the problem is, they are an anethema to government collectivist organizations, so the only way to fix this is to somehow get the government to become civil SERVANTs again, respecting individuals. But I know of no good way to do that, without basically tearing apart the VA's administrative structure and reworking it from the ground up.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-05-30 13:36|| 2014-05-30 13:36|| Front Page Top

#7 To me, it is a simple equation- If you play "hide the weenie" to improve the metrics that relate to your bonus potential, that should be a firing offense.
Before he resigned, "Rick" as his good buddy Champ calls him, said he was locking down the 2014 bonus program. I would rather audit everyone who ever got a bonus in the past 5 years to and state that if they participated in gaming the system needs to have the bonus amounts backed out over the next 6 months as a condition of continued employment. Come clean now and you get to continue as a probationary employee. Don't make us find you or you will be fired...
That's how it would be handled in most F1000 companies.

Posted by Capsu78 2014-05-30 13:49|| 2014-05-30 13:49|| Front Page Top

#8 Carney is out, too.

Posted by Mullah Richard 2014-05-30 14:27|| 2014-05-30 14:27|| Front Page Top

#9 So 2 out; what did the circus come to town and one of the clown cars got lost and ended up @ the WH? (as in 'send in the clowns')

Posted by USN, Ret. 2014-05-30 14:44|| 2014-05-30 14:44|| Front Page Top

#10 Put yourself in the next guy's shoes. It is your first day and you ask for a briefing. The data from that briefing is ultimately generated and controlled by middle management. They lie and "shape" the data to make themselves look better.

You know that you are being told lies so what do you do? I say undercover FBI sting operations across the board. If you don't remove the middle management and the bad apple leaf employees nothing will change. Bad apples are bad apples. Throw them in jail or at least out of the VA.

Posted by Squinty 2014-05-30 15:13|| 2014-05-30 15:13|| Front Page Top

#11 What do you do? You have an IG for a reason, just like the military. Use it!

Posted by OldSpook 2014-05-30 15:15|| 2014-05-30 15:15|| Front Page Top

#12 Maybe now that Carney's gone Zero won't have to find out all the bad news by watching Fox.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2014-05-30 15:19|| 2014-05-30 15:19|| Front Page Top

#13 OS - you missed this little tidbit - Obamas war on government watchdogs. In this case, the top guy should be fired since his cabal has little time for IGs. "I didn't want to know" is closer to the real truth.

Posted by Procopius2k 2014-05-30 15:49|| 2014-05-30 15:49|| Front Page Top

#14 Oh good! Now the VA is fixed and we can all go on fundraisers.

Posted by irishrageboy 2014-05-30 16:26|| 2014-05-30 16:26|| Front Page Top

#15 What do you do? You have an IG for a reason, just like the military. Use it!

It has been my experience that the IG is there to identify the trouble makers and silence them. Someone should sic an independent counsel on the IGs. Or are you still wondering why corruption of this scale was allowed to continue?

Posted by Squinty 2014-05-30 16:46|| 2014-05-30 16:46|| Front Page Top

#16 Procopius2k,
Bad IGs didn't start with Obama, he just perfected it.

Posted by Squinty 2014-05-30 16:54|| 2014-05-30 16:54|| Front Page Top

#17 Deck chairs. Titanic.

Posted by Nguard 2014-05-30 18:05|| 2014-05-30 18:05|| Front Page Top

#18 Obama releases news early to cover up something else... So what is he hiding now???

Posted by 49 Pan 2014-05-30 18:41|| 2014-05-30 18:41|| Front Page Top

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