VA kills plan to cut homeless-vet program after outcry

[RandomGuy]

What a bunch of fucking assholes. Fucking Trump administration mother fucking shitbags had to walk back their bullshit after getting called on it.

It's like this administration sits around thinking about ways to fuck vulnerable people over.



Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin has killed a plan to shift money from a major homelessness program in response to a wave of protest from veterans' advocates, who said the move would aggravate conditions for chronically ill and vulnerable vets.

Advocates for veterans, state officials and even officials from HUD, which co-sponsors the $460 million program, had attacked the decision, saying the service has helped dramatically reduce homelessness among veterans. After POLITICO published a story about their anger, Shulkin reversed course late Wednesday.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/06/homeless-veterans-benefits-trump-207781

[boutons_deux]

The oligarchy and their Repug whores consider 10Ms of Americans to be disposable.

Their only priority is themselves, their wealth, their power to enrich themselves.

But the tax cut allows people to start savings plans for American zygotes.

America is fucked and unfuckable. And it's going to get a lot worse.

Once Trash feels even more emboldened after signing the sociopathic tax cut bill, he and his kakistocracy will push harder for even worse shit

People have no idea how the oligarchy is fucking and going to fuck Americans and America.

The lucrative War with Iran is on the oligarchy's wealth-transfer-upwards agenda.

[rjv]

we officially live in a kleptocracy.

[monosylab1k]

What a bunch of fucking assholes. Fucking Trump administration mother fucking shitbags had to walk back their bullshit after getting called on it.

It's like this administration sits around thinking about ways to fuck vulnerable people over.



https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/06/homeless-veterans-benefits-trump-207781
Yeah but what about Obama and the Clintons? They did shitty stuff too, so that completely excuses and negates any shitty stuff Trump does. Winning!

[baseline bum]

This Trump administration is like taking the worst possible caricature of the Republican party and then making it real.

[RandomGuy]

Yeah but what about Obama and the Clintons? They did shitty stuff too, so that completely excuses and negates any shitty stuff Trump does. Winning!

You say that in jest, but I am going to guess the first response to this from the usual crowd will be a whataboutism.

[boutons_deux]

Veterans health administration hospitals outperform non-VHA hospitals in most markets

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is the largest integrated health care system in the United States,

providing care at 1,243 health care facilities,

including 172 VA Medical Centers and

1,062 outpatient sites.

Many of the 9 million veterans enrolled in the VA healthcare program will, at some point, have to decide whether to seek care at a VA or non-VA facility.

several recent studies using broad representative samples of VHA patients with representative samples not in the VHA system have found that

outcomes at VA hospitals are at least as good as those in the private sector.

Several circumstances they say could account for these findings:

The VHA may provide better care than the private sector in every local area.

Alternatively, non-VHA care may be better than VHA care in more local areas but by a small amount,

whereas VHA care may be better than non-VHA care in fewer local areas but by a large amount in each area.

The average across all patients and hospitals would favor the VHA in the former circumstance and might favor the VHA in the latter.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-12/tdif-vha121018.php

The oligarchy is still intent on destroying VHA and forcing vets into the the for-profit (Capitalist owned) so-called health care.

[boutons_deux]

Repugs intentionally fucking up the VA, target is full privatization, and destruction of VA

D-Day for the VHA?

On Thursday June 6, the Trump administration’s Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) leadership launched its new Veterans Community Care Program (VCCP). Established under the VA MISSION Act of 2018, the

VCCP will outsource the care of millions of America’s most vulnerable veterans to an army of private hospitals, physicians, and other providers.

Over the course of the last two months, dozens of physicians, local VA medical center leaders, and union activists (not to mention veterans who are expected to benefit from the new options and representatives of veterans service organizations) have told the Prospect, that

the VCCP is deliberately designed to set them, and the VHA, up for failure.

Consider these examples of how the program is being undermined:

Under the VCCP, veterans who have to drive 30 to 60 minutes or have to wait more than 20 or 28 days for an appointment will be eligible to see private-sector doctors and hospitals.

Veterans and their care providers are supposed to discuss whether moving from the VHA to private-sector care doing so is in the patient’s “best medical interest.”

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie assured veterans that

“well-trained staff will be available to help them quickly understand their choices.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Wilkie and other Trump appointed VA leaders were supposed to provide VHA caregivers with decision-support tools that would help them navigate potentially difficult conversations with veterans about the new program.

Those tools are not ready.

Support and administration staff were supposed to be well trained in the specifics of the new program.

They have received only scant training at best.

At one East Coast VA medical center, some staff were trained and

then told that the training was all wrong and that it would have to be redone.

Even if they did, VHA medical staff are convinced that Wilkie’s drive and wait-times standards will trump (pun very much intended) their ethical concerns for their patient’s well-being.

They will, they fear, not be able to stop a veteran about

to seek care

from a private-sector psychologist who is not trained in evidence-based care for PTSD or

from a surgeon who recommends unnecessary prostate surgery for a Vietnam veteran suffering from Agent Orange-related cancer.

https://prospect.org/article/d-day-vha

Misgovernance to promote privatization and enrichment of the oligarchy is precisely what the Repugs prioritize.