The VA scandal has me even more ticked off with government than ever. And I work for the government...
I'm just sickened that our politicians continue to be so darn stupid that they think the only way to get anything done better is to throw more money at it. It's an easy solution, you can quote someone saying the "fix" will cost money and then just assume the "fix" will be implemented if you give the screwed up agency more of the money half of us pay to run this clunker of a government.
This scandal also points out the incredible incompetence of the executive branch and congress as managers and their utter contempt of any idea that their intentions don't just happen when they spend our earnings. At least 536 people signed off on a 30 day wait time metric for wait times and then patted themselves on the back for being so "concerned." What idiocy, any manager worth a ... hoot would have anticipated that measure being gamed and determined at least one other metric to make the gaming more difficult.
Some people will demand more "oversight." Here's the deal with Washington oversight; it is incompetent and clueless as a rule not an exception. As an example, I have "oversight" from two agencies that report directly to congress. I hear from those agencies maybe two times a year when they have to write reports. For a couple years, I wrote the reports and my oversight just deleted some of the superlatives and forwarded my assessment to congress! Yeah, my program is doing well and we're not on any list for busting budgets or failing to deliver results but my "oversight" has no freaking clue about anything I don't share! (Except for certain folks not to be named here!) Recently, one of these agencies hired a new fellow to the team of pests that only show up when most annoying. I had to spend about 4 hours on the phone explaining how NAVAIR does test and reporting! Yes, I had to educate my "oversight" on what we do and how and why! Really? The US taxpayer is paying the salary of someone who has no damn idea what I do to "oversee" and report on how well I (my team) do it? It's like paying someone to trip the piper when he's leading the snakes out of the country!
My point is not to expose my personal observations and complaints; I want you to understand why I think I know what has gone wrong. We've entrusted the car of our veterans to a government bureaucracy that is populated with more people that no nothing about providing care than actual doctors and nurses and administrators that know how to efficiently use the resources that the nurses and doctors are! This is not a "flaw" of government, it's a feature! Government gets to set rules and regulations and sometimes that is valuable. However, many times it is not. If you go into any government healthcare facility, you will be told where to stand, fill out a form you've filled out 7 times already and Lord knows how many other rules to follow. Don't like it, fed up, pissed off, offended? Too freaking bad, go home and die or suffer. Go into a private doctors' office and don't like the process or anything else and you can go elsewhere! (Pre Obamacare) That doctor will fire the crappy receptionist or insurance specialist or anyone else that drags the practice down. Doctors in private practice are incentivized to provide a comforting experience from walking in the door to walking out, the good ones provide excellent care while managing a staff and complying with horrendous regulation. Government doctors don't have to worry about losing business, their mandatory customers (formerly known as patients) have no choice to find a better doctor. They have to wait until called and jump through any hoop any puissant has invented, not for the patient's benefit but to make the numbers look good. The doctors are not the problem, they care, government is the problem!
Government can make things mandatory and always does. That's the poison! That's how you end up with 10 people "helping" for every job that needs to get done.
I'm thankful that I've so far had good health. I'm also thankful that I'm in Tricare and don't have to deal with the VA. That said, I know more than a couple folks that the current VA will let die while they keep their "metrics" up. I hope they choke on their bonus. The VA is broken, it can't be fixed as long as a fundamentally inept government runs it. We need to get every single VA hospital and the whole VA converted to a private sector endeavor that can be easily and fundamentally held accountable like every failed business is held accountable!
