Socialized medicine has as its first obligation government not patients

VA Threatens To Shut Down Hospitals As Vets Die Waiting For Benefits

07/14/2015 06:43 PM ETi

Waste: The VA says it will shut down some hospitals if it doesn't get more money this year. Meanwhile, almost a third of those trying to enroll died before getting a decision. What do these things have in common?

A little less than a year ago, President Obama signed a bill that injected an additional $16 billion in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The measure was supposed to, as Obama put it, "ensure that veterans have access to the care that they've earned." The money, he said, "will help the VA hire more doctors and more nurses and staff more clinics." Obama said the bill also would improve accountability.

Whatever the bill's intentions, it hasn't succeeded.

Despite the huge cash infusion, the VA now says it needs another $2.5 billion to cover its medical costs for the rest of the year.

And on Monday, officials at the VA threatened Congress that if they don't get the money, they might have to shut some hospitals down next month.

This is an agency, mind you, that is rife with fraud and abuse and a culture of "lawlessness and chaos," as one official put it in an internal memo.

That memo noted that the VA spends about $6 billion a year in violation of federal contracting rules, wasting much money in the process. It also spent $1.7 billion on an as-yet-unfinished hospital that was supposed to cost $328 million.

And despite all that talk about accountability, the VA seems just as unaccountable as it ever was.

In fact, the last-minute demand for more money prompted House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., to complain about the VA's "blatant mismanagement ."

Meanwhile, the chronic and at times deadly treatment delays that the money was supposed to shorten have actually grown longer over the year.

And now we learn that veterans are literally dying while waiting for the VA to process their enrollment applications.

The Huffington Post reports that of the 847,000 veterans currently in line, some 238,000 of them had already died. In addition, there were 34,000 combat veterans on the waiting list, even though combat veterans are immediately eligible for VA health benefits.

At a minimum this is a serious clerical error. But more to the point, it's another sign of waste and inefficiency at the VA. How could it have let nearly a million enrollment applications pile up?

Before Congress gives the VA another dime, it needs to insist on real reform and real accountability. Anything less is a disservice to the men and women who've put their lives on the line for their country.