Discussion: Senate Set To Confirm Wilkie For Veterans Affairs Secretary

If he weren’t a Trump loyalist eager to drop 22 million veterans into the burning maw of the private health care industry, he wouldn’t have been nominated.

Also, sending someone directly from the Pentagon to the VA is a big mistake. Military types - as opposed to veterans who do not work in the Pentagon - do not understand or appreciate civilian agencies.

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Hope Yen: “…VA, which has struggled with long waits in providing medical treatment to millions of veterans…”

Why are you reporting Republican myths here at TPM? Like every large organization the VA has had management problems in the past and should have been doing better. Employee’s fudging records of wait times etc. is more of a symptom of bad management and under funding than bad employees. By most metrics and patient surveys the VA is generally BETTER than average for health care delivery in the US.

Stop repeating Koch and Mercer supported Republican talking points as received wisdom.

And by the way in that poorly written sentence quoted above is unclear about whether you mean that the VA has a record of long waits for millions of patients, or whether there were some long waits for some of the millions of patients the VA serves.

TPM should be aware of the shoddy journalism they are supporting. And stop doing it.

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It’s an AP article, on a noteworthy topic, to answer why is it reported/carried at TPM. That is always the danger with AP items - the tendency that the writing tends perpetuates long standing Republican narratives.

My one hope is that they can’t oossibly privatize in 2 years. Of course, they could treat this the same way they treat migrant families…just ruin everything and then have no idea or plan to fix the mess.

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This bit is a bit to cozy with conventional wisdom. I used the VA for decades. After using the GI ( a VA program ) bill to get advanced degrees in biochemistry and molecular biology I was employed by the VA as well. Almost none of the problems alleged to exist within the VA actually exit. Like defending the Second Amendment…no one is attacking it so you’ll have an easy go of it. Same for the VA.

The biggest problem the VA faces is TOO many veterans. Many with ghastly injuries that will make them VA dependent for life. If you want to see shorter waiting times put less people in line.