COVID-19 & Healthcare

You can read the New York Times coverage here, V.A. Watchdog Says Delays Affected Care in Phoenix Hospital, the Washington Post coverage here, ‘Troubling’ new VA report ignites wave of outrage, the Los Angeles Times coverage here, VA probe expands amid new calls for Shinseki to resign, and The Arizona Republic coverage here, McCain, Flake on VA: Shinseki should resign for sensationalist reporting and political grandstanding by politicians.

But the most concise summary of the I.G. interim report I have seen so far comes from Daily Kos, Inspector General’s interim report confirms long delays for patients at Phoenix VA hospital:

An interim report (.pdf) released Wednesday by the Inspector General’s Office (OIG) of the Veterans Administration has confirmed previous claims of serious delays in scheduling appointments and providing treatment to patients at the VA’s Phoenix Health Care System. The report did not, however, go so far as to say that staff at Phoenix had concealed or destroyed records, or that veterans had died because they couldn’t get a timely appointment for treatment. Such findings could come later.

The report includes recommendations for change, but notes that getting a handle on the allegations of gross mismanagement and misallocation of resources in Phoenix and elsewhere in the VA system will have to await the completion of a more thorough report.

As a consequence of the allegations against Phoenix, congressional Republicans, who have a record of failing to fund the VA adequately, have called for the resignation of the Veterans Administration chief, General Eric Shinseki, someone picked specifically because of his reputation as a straight talker with demonstrated willingness to buck the system.

Acting Inspector General Richard Griffin noted in the interim report’s executive summary that since 2005, his office has issued 18 reports “that identified, at both the national and local levels, deficiencies in scheduling resulting in lengthy waiting times and the negative impact on patient care.”

[So where was Sen. John McCain all these years? Oh right, advocating for more wars and casualties of war on the Sunday morning bobblehead shows.]

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A couple of must read posts from the Political Animal blog on the VA “scandal.”

First, Martin Longman compares the wait times for doctor appointments between the VA and the private sector. While directly comparable data is not available, the VA  is comparable to the private sector. VA Scandal Bolsters Case for Socialized Medicine:

As Tim Noah points out at MSNBC, people wait at least as long, and probably longer, to get a doctor’s appointment in the private sector than they do at the Veterans’ Administration.

Directly comparable data for the private sector are unavailable. But a 2014 survey (pdf) of physician wait times found the average private-sector wait time to be 18.5 days – two and a half days less than at the VA. In Boston, which has a high concentration of top-quality private-sector hospitals, the average wait time was 45.4 days.

This private-sector survey almost certainly skews low because it was conducted in 15 cities rather than the entire country, and because it was limited to five specialties (cardiology, dermatology, obstetrics-gynecology, orthopedic surgery, and family practice). Also, the survey was limited to Medicare and Medicaid patients, many of whom—a quarter of the Medicare patients and more than half of the Medicaid patients — the doctors declined to treat at all, reducing their wait times artificially to zero. Since everyone requesting a VA appointment comes pre-approved, VA health providers must make appointments for 100% of those who request one.

If the Republicans want to make the scandal at a few veterans’ hospitals into an argument against socialized medicine, they are going to lose that argument.

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The real Veterans Administration scandal is the failure of Congress to provide adequate funding to the VA, and to pay salaries commensurate to the private sector to medical staff at VA facilities.

This happened just this past February: Expanded veterans benefits bill fails over GOP’s budget-busting objections:

Democrats’ plans to expand education and health benefits for veterans died in the Senate on Thursday after Republicans blocked the bill for not having a funding source and thus busting the budget all sides agreed to just two months ago.

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“I don’t know why we have a Congress, why we pass laws that say we’re only going to spend so much money and then we waltz in a few weeks later and spend billions more than we agreed to and, oh, we’ll just waive the budget we just passed,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who led the Republican resistance.

Two Republicans (Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada and Jerry Moran of Kansas) did vote with 54 Democrats, but that left them still four votes shy of the 60 needed to [break the GOP filibuster].

The 367-page bill would have expanded education benefits for survivors and new veterans, worked to reduce the Veterans Affairs claims backlog and opened VA care to more veterans.

That’s right, Arizona Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake filibustered the Veterans Administration bill back in February.

Republicans also filibustered the bill because they wanted to add an unrelated amendment for Iran sanctions to the bill to undermine and derail  the current negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. Neocon war mongers like Sen. John McCain want to get their war on with Iran. This would only guarantee more American casualties and overwhelm the VA further.

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