Will the Veterans vote forTrump the second time ? After all he is" The warrior" who killed the evil Iranian General?
what did he do for them in the first term?
Sweeping reforms of the VA were seen as a real possibility after
Trump's victory, but how far they will go is still an open question. Donald
Trump won the veteran vote by a two-to-one margin over Hillary Clinton
because his promises to "drain the swamp" in Washington resonated with
veterans fed up with failed VA reforms. But his actual reform ideas don't
seem as extreme as the privatization agenda that ultimately aims to close
VA hospitals and enrich corporate health care; he has proposed at times a
Medicare-style option for veterans to choose freely between VA or private
sector care, but that's a position that alarms mainstream veterans groups
that argue it would drain resources from the VA and steer veterans away
from the agency's specialized, integrated care. He also sought to fire
"corrupt and incompetent VA executives."
Yet to some whistleblowers and other critics of the department, his
selection of Dr. David Shulkin, a VA insider who is also not a veteran, to
head the agency makes drastic, genuine change less likely. "For veterans
who voted for Donald Trump, this is going to feel like a 'bait-and-switch,"'
says Benj
says Benjamin Krause, founder of the reform website DisabledVeterans.org.
He argues, "Keeping Shulkin will keep a host of flunkies and criminals who
should have been part of the whole 'drain the swamp' promise." At the same
time, Shulkin, as VA Secretary, has been praised even by some internal
department critics for making progress with his announced reforms; he has
also demonstrated a shrewd sense of public relations by moving to remove a
few scandal-ridden VA hospital directors hit by national publicity and to
improve transparency about the wait times at local facilities. Yet he has
done little about lesser-known, appalling health care scandals and the
ongoing retaliation against whistleblowers that have continued unabated
since he joined the department as undersecretary of health in June 2015. As
Krause points out, "I don't know of a single instance when a VA employee
has been
has been held accountable for harassing whistleblowers."
Many liberals have discounted the VA scandals as merely some right-
wing or media fabrication. Yet that stance ignores a mountain of damning
reports by the VA's own Inspector General, the GAO, reputable news
organizations, congressional committees—and, especially, the tragic stories
of patients, families and dedicated VA workers victimized by the agency.
The VA can't truly be reformed if it becomes just a political football for
ideologues.
Less than a year after the dozens of wait-time deaths at the Phoenix VA
medical center were first exposed in April 2014, the Center for Investigative
Reporting revealed another crisis that won far less national attention: The
Tomah VA hospital's chief of staff, psychiatrist Dr. David Houlihan, had
recklessly overused opiates and psychotropic drugs. For years, Tomah
hospital executives had brushed aside complaints, just as there was little
what did he do for them in the first term?
Sweeping reforms of the VA were seen as a real possibility after
Trump's victory, but how far they will go is still an open question. Donald
Trump won the veteran vote by a two-to-one margin over Hillary Clinton
because his promises to "drain the swamp" in Washington resonated with
veterans fed up with failed VA reforms. But his actual reform ideas don't
seem as extreme as the privatization agenda that ultimately aims to close
VA hospitals and enrich corporate health care; he has proposed at times a
Medicare-style option for veterans to choose freely between VA or private
sector care, but that's a position that alarms mainstream veterans groups
that argue it would drain resources from the VA and steer veterans away
from the agency's specialized, integrated care. He also sought to fire
"corrupt and incompetent VA executives."
Yet to some whistleblowers and other critics of the department, his
selection of Dr. David Shulkin, a VA insider who is also not a veteran, to
head the agency makes drastic, genuine change less likely. "For veterans
who voted for Donald Trump, this is going to feel like a 'bait-and-switch,"'
says Benj
says Benjamin Krause, founder of the reform website DisabledVeterans.org.
He argues, "Keeping Shulkin will keep a host of flunkies and criminals who
should have been part of the whole 'drain the swamp' promise." At the same
time, Shulkin, as VA Secretary, has been praised even by some internal
department critics for making progress with his announced reforms; he has
also demonstrated a shrewd sense of public relations by moving to remove a
few scandal-ridden VA hospital directors hit by national publicity and to
improve transparency about the wait times at local facilities. Yet he has
done little about lesser-known, appalling health care scandals and the
ongoing retaliation against whistleblowers that have continued unabated
since he joined the department as undersecretary of health in June 2015. As
Krause points out, "I don't know of a single instance when a VA employee
has been
has been held accountable for harassing whistleblowers."
Many liberals have discounted the VA scandals as merely some right-
wing or media fabrication. Yet that stance ignores a mountain of damning
reports by the VA's own Inspector General, the GAO, reputable news
organizations, congressional committees—and, especially, the tragic stories
of patients, families and dedicated VA workers victimized by the agency.
The VA can't truly be reformed if it becomes just a political football for
ideologues.
Less than a year after the dozens of wait-time deaths at the Phoenix VA
medical center were first exposed in April 2014, the Center for Investigative
Reporting revealed another crisis that won far less national attention: The
Tomah VA hospital's chief of staff, psychiatrist Dr. David Houlihan, had
recklessly overused opiates and psychotropic drugs. For years, Tomah
hospital executives had brushed aside complaints, just as there was little
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