There certainly hasn’t been much written about it in the mainstream media, but an article posted on Military.Com’s web site suggests that the Bush Administration is charging full speed ahead with plans to dismantle the Veteran’s administration.
“What VA?” the article quotes a chuckling Senator’s aide as saying in a conversation that suggested that the VA is being dismantled. “By the time this administration is done there won’t be a VA.”
So why would the Bush administration want to dismantle the VA? The article suggests three reasons:
- VA is a large-scale, publicly funded healthcare system that works: VA works so well it has been used as a model to push the case for nationalized healthcare; something that strikes fear in the heart of every Republican… VA is efficient and provides healthcare that meets the highest standards. If it can work for millions of veterans, it can work for millions of Americans. That concept is antithetical to current administration thinking. In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina we learned that VA was the ONLY healthcare organization that managed to save ALL patient records. This is because VA uses a computerized system that was backed-up on a regional level and put back online in a matter of hours.
- VA is ripe for privatization: And that spells profits for private corporations. The latest move in this direction happened last week on Capitol Hill where the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs approved [a bill] which would spend money from VA’s healthcare budget to study outsourcing jobs of VA healthcare workers. The study, with VA healthcare funds going to private consultants, could cost over $140 million and lead to the loss of up to 36,000 VA jobs. Democrats opposed it, but Republicans pushed it through
- VA is part of BIG government: And that’s something this administration abhors…
The article points out that the VA’s respected computer system is under attack from Rep. Steve Buyer (R.Ind), Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, who has proposed eliminating regional control of the system under the guise of saving money.
It also cites other tell-tale signs that a dismantling of the VA is underway, including:
- Recommendations by last year’s CARES commission calling for the closing of VA hospitals.
- Statements by Dr. David Chu, undersecretary at the Dept. of Defense. To the effect that the government is spending so much money on veterans’ benefits that it is hurting the country’s ability to fight current wars.”
- Measures being pushed by Representative Buyers calling for “massive changes” in VA benefits.
The author of the piece, Larry Scott, writes:
It is hard to keep up with this administration’s efforts to dismantle or privatize the social safety net, but this would seem to be yet another example, one that seems to be pretty much flying under the radar. We need to pay attention, and we need to act!
What’s to object to?
but…. but….
it worked SO well in the Middle ages!
I am sure some Republican is dreaming up ways to set up a private hospital in India and Thailand to provide cut rate services to veterans and make a fortune with the Bush Consigliere deLay taking his cut.This will be touted as a great saving for tax payers.This way Bush will manage to screw the vetarans, the doctors and nurses at our VA hospitals and manage to screw future physicians emerging from our colleges.
Just when I think this group of criminals have exhausted their bag of tricks, they keep suprising me with their depraved indifference to suffering.
Destroying Govt programs is childs play!
Child’s play.
Military support orgs are at stage 6
FEMA is in stage 6
Education is just starting stage 5
Social Security is at the end of stage 4
Veterans Administration is in stage 4
…
And where are the Dems? Hiding in a cave, drying powder?
Politics left reality when talking about revenue (taxes) became off-limits.
identify government spending
declare such spending wasteful
propose to streamline
put out to bid
grant open-ended contract to highest bidder (if campaign contributer)
bidder declares that problem is bigger than anticipated and services have to be cut
increase funding to bidder
cut more services
increase funding to bidder as more problems are found
For all contracts, follow rule #1:
NEVER DELIVER THE ICE
The bill discussed is S. 1182 by the Committee Chair, Larry Craig, and the offending paragraph strikes 38 USC 1810(a)(5).
Get specific and request the members strike Section 10 of the bill:
The Committee link is: http://veterans.senate.gov
Committee members : http://veterans.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=About.CommitteeMembers
A moderate looking committee. I’m surprised that group would push for outside cost comparisons. OTOH, they just approved five new appointments (check the site), one of which is the functional budget director.
When you are soldier they own you. That means you get vaccinations for anthrax, not because they really mean that much. Being exposed to anthrax is easily address by taking a very minor antibiotic and several sitting on the counter are able to handle the job just fine. We may lose a soldier or two in discovering that anthrax is on loose, but wow look at the soldiers we lose everyday to roadside bombs. The real reason to give soldiers anthrax vaccinations is to study what it will do to the soldiers. Agent Orange was supposed to be perfectly safe but it wasn’t. Depleted uranium shells are used in Iraq and join up with the sand and visit everybody during a good sandstorm……right into your lungs to discharge radioactivity into your body until you die and even after that. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to use the shells or you don’t want to go to Iraq, you will do what you are told when you are told to do it and what it does to you physically now is your tough luck. I hate these fuckers so much. There aren’t even words available to describe how much I hate them, and all these kids are returning from Iraq with PTSD now…..this is so sickening!
I hate them, too, Tracy. My husband is still suffering the effects of Agent Orange. He even had nightmares this week because of his experiences in Viet Nam. He’s wounded for life because he thought it was honorable to join the Marines in ’66. They trained him to be a sniper, among other skills, so you would think they’d be a bit more considerate… considering what he knows how to do.
There’s this little problem with the Repub strategy: If it is their intent to discredit government, reduce it to near non-existence — and I believe that’s what I’m seeing — and they succeed then… all hell breaks loose. Because, if all the government does is wage war and subsidize corporations, then a lot of people are simply going to stop paying their taxes. I mean, if it’s every man (and his family) for himself without any support then we’ll all end up on metaphorical Ruby Ridges killing tax collectors.
I don’t think that’s what they envision, really. They honestly believe people will pay 25% of their income to their local mega-church and the church will provide their disability assistance along with education for their children and homemaking classes for the wives who can’t work because they can’t stop getting pregnant. They think we’ll pay an additional 10% to our local for-profit “security providers” and another 10% to our “health providers.” And so on.
But, they are wrong. History proves that when the common man is left to his own resources he tends to join with others and EAT THE RICH! Oh, they may be confused at first and kill blacks, gays, Hispanics and/or liberals but eventually it comes down to the Those-Who-Have and Those-Who-Don’t and the Gated Communities will be stormed just like the Bastille.
These guys may think the blood bath will come later and they don’t care about “History; we’ll all be dead.” But the way events have excelerated in our interconnected global village, I would not be surprised to see a revolution before I die and I’m talking within 20 years max.
I’ve been wondering lately whether the current regime might not prove to be a more potent rallying point for overthrow of the US government, violent or otherwise, than Marx or Lenin could have even aspired to. I’ve never experienced such a disconnect between this country and its people. That’s the first step. Nobody knows where the point of no return kicks in.
If I were a science fiction writer of the alternate reality persuasion, I’d find this plot extremely interesting: an almost infinitely subtle conspiracy by Trotskyites turned neocons works over the decades to gradually destroy the credibility of the US system. Finally they succeed in putting the dumbest ass they can conjure into the White House, by hook and by crook. His regime delivers the coup de gras: Americans finally have enough and tear down their institutions, eat the rich, and establish a federation of anarcho-communist free states, at long last fulfilling the venerable Marxist revolutionary dream.
Of course that wouldn’t necessarily be the final outcome, but the sabotage by ex-trots is undeniable.
They’re communists, authoritarian/dictatorical/ totalitarians who infiltrated our government/media with the intent to destroy us. I think it’s time for an update on that hoary old John Birch Screed “None Dare Call It Treason.”
I’m giving Them two more years to stage a kabuki theater production of swinging the pendulum back to the left, doling out some liberties and saving their asses…
I felt two emotions as I read this: red-hot rage and unabashed sorrow.
The VA here is my only source of medical care and undoubtedly the only source for many veterans.
This sort of stuff really infuriates me!
Thanks for this diary jpol.
So much for “support the troops….”
With all the mixed emotions about DailyKos on BT, I almost hesitate to suggest cross-posting there, but this is excellent and needs more exposure to the public, so would you consider it? Thanks for an excellent job on yet more depressing information! Let’s turn over Congress to Democrats in 2006 and stop this juggernaut of destruction called Republican policies!
It is posted there:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/2/18191/9663
Thanks! I didn’t see it – hmmm, maybe it’s better to look here first!