Why So Many Veterans Belong To The I-HATE-THE-VA-CLUB

I guess the title really says it all...What it doesn’t say, however, is how this peculiar love-hate most veterans harbor towards the Veterans Administration got started in the first place.

Yeah, the VA and its network of Veterans Administration Medical Centers can be a bureaucratic nightmare of unhelpful exclusion for many veterans. No one should ever deny this reality -- especially the frustrated veterans who rely on the VA for their healthcare. Getting medical care from the VAMC can and often does become a case study in government dysfunction. So while it’s better than nothing at all, it’s still not as good as it should be.

No doubt a lot of veterans have experienced -- and still experience and will continue to experience -- a lot of difficulty with the VA and the VAMC’s.

But why?

Why is something that our nation pledged as a guaranteed right for veterans now such a dysfunctional bureaucratic nightmare for them?

One word: CONGRESS.

That’s right: CONGRESS.

You see, Congress is solely responsible for funding the VA so it can provide care for America’s veterans.

But get ready for this factoid: The VA is not and has never been an official mandatory part of the Congressional Budget.

Think about that for a minute.

Although the VA is completely dependent on Congress for funding all its operations and services for veterans, the VA is not mandated as a recipient in the yearly Congressional budget.

The Veterans Administration has always fallen under “discretionary” -- not mandatory -- spending. That means as far as Congressional spending goes, the VA has always been a bridesmaid, never a bride. That means the VA has never been a top priority in America’s yearly budget.

In other words, the VA is -- and always has been -- a mere afterthought for bean counters in the House and Senate. Only after our legislators allot monies for themselves, their pet projects, The Pentagon and its ubiquitous War Machine, and social service programs like Social Security and Medicare do they then start to divvy up what’s left for the Veterans Administration.

So I’m not saying that the Congressional Budget never allocates any money for the VA. It does. Of course, it does. These public servants working and voting on the budget KNOW they’d better keep giving some money to veterans if they want to keep getting re-elected. That’s not the problem.

The problem -- the really big problem -- is that the amount budgeted for the Veterans Administration and its network of medical centers nationwide fluctuates so much from year to year that the VA literally never knows how much money it will receive from Congress. (Talk about a “shortfall.”)

That’s why the care and services at each VAMC can vary so much from state to state. With such inconsistent amounts to budget from year to year, the availability of various medical procedures and services at each clinic also varies. Each VAMC varies in its approach to healthcare and in the care it can afford to give. So healthcare available for veterans in Montana won’t necessarily be the same healthcare that’s allowed in Florida -- or New Mexico.

There’s no such thing as true universal healthcare at the VA, thanks to Congress.

And yet, Congress keeps expanding access and eligibility for more and more veterans so they can (supposedly) get healthcare and prescriptions from the VA! As long as the United States wages war, our troops will need medical care and treatment. As long as Congress keeps the Military Industrial Complex alive, there will be no shortage of wars any time soon. Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan -- what’s next? At this point, no one knows the exact location, but everyone knows there’s going to be another war somewhere for America’s soldiers down the line. That means even more casualties of war for the VA.

Q. So why does Congress keep expanding the VA but keep funding it less and less?

A. Because the Republicans on Capital Hill want to privatize the VA. And if they can’t privatize it, they’ll settle for killing it.

They’re using a time-honored strategy taken directly from the pages of the Republican -- not the Democratic -- playbook. And they’re going to keep using it, too, because it’s soooo effective. It works. It really works. In case you haven’t noticed, here’s the M.O.

Whenever you want to kill any government program or agency, you choke it. You underfund it. You stop giving it money. With no money for operations, regulations, or enforcement, the government target stops working efficiently. Then it stops working altogether.

Then it eventually withers and dies.

Amid its death throes, however, there’s always a Republican -- not a Democratic -- senator or congressman on TV who announces, “Government is broken. This (insert dying program or agency here) is broken. We’ve got to scrap it and start all over.”

In other words, after Republicans destroy the intended government target, they immediately blame the government target for not working right. Then they start talking about PRIVATIZATION. They want big business to move in and take control of the broken government target that they deliberately and systematically broke.

Hey, don’t pooh-pooh that analysis. Don’t underestimate that Republican strategy, either. Today’s Republicans are really closet fascists who won’t show their true colors to the American Public until it’s too late. They really do want to dismantle government as we know it so their rich donors can take over and get even richer.

Don’t laugh. They did it to the Post Office. They did it to our public school system. Why wouldn’t it work for the Veterans Administration? Or the Veterans Administration Medical Centers?

This Republican strategy IS working. It’s going to keep working, too, because too many veterans and civilians alike are being deliberately misinformed. The biggest thing the Republican Machine has going for it is the ignorance of American Citizens.

Too many Americans honestly don’t know that Congress is solely responsible for funding the VA’s operations. But I’m not going to start trashing any American for being stupid. Even if you try to be an interested, well-read, well-informed citizen, you still need accurate information. You still need dedicated journalists to help you understand what’s going on. You still need to get pertinent info so you can connect the dots.

That just wasn’t happening with this VA scandal. Instead of providing credible and reliable information to Americans so they could form their own decisions about the VA, journalists were actually backing off and going along with the BS/ CYA scripts that the politicians and military-officers-as-consultants were propagating.

Remember when the Republicans on Capital Hill fillibusted a bill that would have increased funding for the VA? I remember. So do a lot of other veterans. For some mysterious reason, though, the high-profile, well-paid journalists didn’t remember at all. Remembering such info might have come in handy during the reporting of this story...Especially when all the Republicans being interviewed were expressing outrage about the same government agency they’d been trying so hard to dismantle and privatize.

Remember when acting VA Secretary Eric Shinseki championed Vietnam Veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange and obtained benefits for them?  I remember. So do a lot of other veterans. Maybe that’s the real reason so many Republicans on the Hill hate his guts and want him out of office -- in humiliation and disgrace, of course. After all, Shinseki was nominated by Obama AND was active in helping veterans receive their well-deserved benefits.

Too bad too many journalists suffered from amnesia when they were reporting this story, though. No one in the media even offered serious discussions about mandatory v. discretionary spending. No one even brought up the Republican fillibuster -- or their outrage over benefits for Agent Orange Exposure. No one even wanted to ask any Republican the obvious question: If  government really is THAT broken, then why do you, a well-paid government employee, want to keep breaking it instead of fixing it?

( And this means you, Anderson Cooper, Randi Kaye, Bob Schieffer, Brian Williams, and Diane Sawyer.)

Conspicuously absent from any media coverage of this VA scandal were facts. OK, let’s review:

A whistleblower reported that about 40 veterans died while waiting to get into the VAMC in Phoenix, Arizona. And then, the VA instructed clerical workers and record keepers to fudge the dates so it wouldn’t appear that these veterans (and other vets at different VAMC’s) died because the wait times were too long. Well, that is exactly what happened: veterans did die because they couldn’t get medical care fast enough. But what was sorely needed in reporting this story was accurate information. You know, the nuts and bolts of the discussion. The essential, rudimentary data that might have helped the public understand how and why “something like this” could have happened in the first place.

Also missing from this story was some kind of panel discussion about the VA that featured veterans who have to use the VA. Not any retired officers who make so much money being media consultants that they never have to use any VAMC for their healthcare. Not any Republicans who keep demanding Shinseki’s head after they voted to underfund the VA. Certainly not any journalists who forgot to research this story, either.




No, I mean real, honest-to-God veterans. Not officers, politicians, experts, or other pseudo-journalists. I mean real people who can tell real stories about their healthcare and experiences with the VA. And stop dismissing them as stupid, brain-dead guys who can’t articulate their concerns. Check in your own prejudices about vets --both male and female -- at the door and listen.

Listen to the Americans who are directly involved with the VA.

Until we start listening to these veterans and their real-life adventures with the VA, we’re never going to be able to figure things out...And we’re never going to be able to change things, either.