Shinseki Wasn’t the Problem with the VA, Obama Was

tricare

Shinseki should have resigned a while back and for the right reasons, but he wasn’t the problem with the VA. The military cost-cutting culture that Obama and his Center for American Progress backers brought into politics was.

The VA scandal is one of those events where the consequences of an ongoing policy reaches the public and Obama pretends to be as upset as the public expects him to be.

Whether or not the White House knew about the waiting list, the impulse to cut the costs of military health care came from the very top. Shinseki was implementing an administration policy. So were the VA people responsible. They may not have been told exactly how to implement it, but what happened was a consequence of a larger policy directive.

Like them, Shinseki is a scapegoat. He did a bad job, but he was ‘following orders’.

This year, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was pushing for cuts to Tricare benefits and claiming that military health care was dragging the defense budget down.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel defended dramatic Tricare fee hikes included in the Obama administration’s proposed 2014 budget on Thursday, telling Congress the changes “were among the most carefully considered and difficult choices” in the entire plan.

The budget calls for creating new enrollment fees for Tricare for Life, Tricare Standard and Tricare Extra health programs, and increasing deductibles and co-pays for prescription drugs, with the changes falling most heavily on working-age retirees under 65 and their families.

This wasn’t Chuck Hagel’s idea. Hagel was implementing an agenda pushed by the Center for American Progress, the think tank that had the most influence on Obama and whose staffers went on to play key roles in the administration.

Two years ago, I wrote about the Center for American Progress’ war on veterans.

The Tricare cuts are supposed to save 1.8 billion dollars, which we could just as easily save by eliminating aid to Egypt and Pakistan.

In 2011 the Center for American Progress issued a special paper deceptively titled, “Restoring Tricare” calling for higher premiums to “encourage responsible use” of Tricare benefits by veterans. CAP’s war on veterans was spearheaded by Lawrence Korb. Korb is a senior fellow at CAP and a senior adviser at the Center for Defense Information. Both are Soros linked organizations.

As part of the ax, enrollees will see a 400 percent health care premium increase over the next five years leading to hundreds or thousands more in expenses for veterans who are already facing a bad economy.

Older veterans will face an enrollment fee.  Also included is a doubling of the co-pay on prescription drugs at pharmacies and a tripling of the co-pay for mail order medication.

The VA has been bad for a long time, but no previous administration made cutting health care to vets on its budget priorities.

What happened at the VA came from the top down. It was dictated by anti-war special interests who were pursuing a larger agenda. A single resignation won’t change that. We have to stop pretending that this was an accident or a few bad apples.

What we should do is have a serious conversation about the agenda of Obama Inc. to slash military budgets with little concern for the lives of veterans.

  • Habbgun

    Whenever the VA is discussed it is important to show how illegal Occupiers were treated and how veterans were treated by Obama over the budget issue. Occupiers were simply less hygienic (but probably not by much) Obama campaign workers. It tells you all you need to know. The VA is simply something the Left would like to knock down. It is seen as something that glorifies military service at the Left’s expense. The Left is about crying about international conflict and extolling street fighting.

    • glpage

      Ultimately, extolling street fighting may not be a good policy for the left. When they can keep it to the sort of level we saw in all the Occupy protests they will have their way to some extent. If they decide to take it farther, I think they will find they are woefully unprepared for the response they will get.

      • truebearing

        The Left is unwilling to risk their own lives in the revolution, hence their obsession with bans on guns.
        The passion is not on the side of the Left. This is what keeps them from pushing for more advantage.
        They are elitest cowards. They deserve the fate they wish on others. Irony is a good thing, but God save us from irony.

  • De Doc

    Shinseki was clearly a political appointment and a nominal head for the VA. To be fair, his experience was in leading military organizations, which is a very different creature than the mostly civilian based, healthcare setting of the VA. Even so, he bears responsibility for its failures and inability to act swiftly when all these issues were developing. Congress also bears responsibility because it funds the VA! That Obama Inc couldn’t give two craps about our veterans is not surprising or new, but blaming the Big O accomplishes nothing to solve the problems of the VA system.

  • Libslayer

    Gitmo head hackers get top notch food, accommodations, and healthcare.
    Veterans get ignored to death.
    Obama hates America and loves Islamics.
    There’s all the proof you need.

  • DogmaelJones1

    What we need is a serious discussion about how to stop Obama from slashing everyone and the whole country. Obama needs to follow The Carnival Barker and the Shih Tzu out the door. Only problem with that, if it ever happened, is that Biden the Bilious would move into the Oval Office and turn it into a Saturday Night Live stage.

  • truebearing

    Too many people are satisfied firing missiles at decoy chaff and flares (the devices fighters use to protect from heatseeking missiles). How many soldiers are decorated for shooting down flares in a war? None, obviously, so why are Americans satisfied with the ceremonial “head roll” used by every politician since time began? If the fat head rolled, that would be one thing, but annoying though he was, Carney was just a pair of lips and Shinseki was a sacrificial anode. Justice has not been served nor has the truth been exposed. Once again, Obama throws people under the bus and most Americans will be satisfied.

    Tomorrow the Left will be saying the VA scandal is “old news.”

    The list of vets who were denied care should be analyzed for demographic patterns. Race and political affiliation should be matched to the list, and if possible, to the list of those not put on the secret list. A correlation would not be hard to establish. It is the only way to see if there was a political motive, which if there was, should finally bring down Obama and his evil minions.
    Daniel, I would like to hear your take on the importance of analyzing this data. I haven’t heard anyone discussing this angle. It doesn’t seem like there is a better way to prove a motive or that this was something that started at the top. This kind of stuff is exactly what I would expect from the death panel lovin’ Left.