VA Secretary McDonald "Indifferent?" NO! He is passionate about serving veterans.

I CANNOT agree with WSJ's January 13 report on VA "indifference." My experience since 1992 has been quite the opposite, other than a few instances where staffers were in an inappropriate position of authority. Instead VA has been amazingly attentive to my concerns, and concerns of the veterans of our C-123 Veterans Association.

For instance, this MLK holiday weekend a dedicated claims worker in the VA St Paul Regional Office has been reviewing veterans' claims and resolving many which have taken too long.

That worker has been available for detailed inquiries, and has resolved claims in as little as 16 days for a terminal veteran.

Mr. McDonald's leadership cannot inspire everyone at VA nor can he do the work of all 300,000 employees. His leadership, however, is as telling as it can be. I cannot imagine any cabinet officer working as hard at such a thankless job.

As for medical care, I've had some disappointments but in the decades since my injury, probably fewer complaints with VA than I'd have had with my civilian practitioners, and certainly a more comprehensive package of care offered me...dental, prosthetics, rehab, pharmacy, ophthalmology, general medicine and other benefits essential to a disabled veteran.

Veterans are lucky to be able to say to Secretary McDonald, "Thank you for YOUR service!"

House Veterans Committee Chair Blasts VA

He said it, right out loud. In the stately halls of Congress.

"FUBAR on steroids." Congressman Miller was referring to the Department of Veterans Affairs. If the phrase FUBAR is unknown to you, enjoy watching Saving Private Ryan again!

FUBAR for VA wan't good. It was Chairman Miller shooting from the hip with a couple full belts from his verbal .50 cal M2, expressing the nation's concerns over VA construction, claims, appeals backlogs and other scandals.

We don't know if VA opposition to C-123 claims these past four years fits into his FUBAR F-bomb, but we do know the delay has denied us medical care and also has cost us money. Denied state benefits because we still wait for VA disability ratings. Denied property tax relief while waiting for the VA to process our claims. Our kids, all now past college age anyway, denied tuition waivers due children of disabled veterans. There is a "catch-up" check of VA disability benefits when a long-delayed claim is finally approved, but there is no catch-up for everything denied the veteran during the years of waiting for "the big brown envelope" to arrive with a disability decision.

In our case, scientists have had everything the VA needed to properly adjudicated our exposure claims since at least 2008. VA, on the other hand, had everything it needed to delay our service connection ratings for these past years, and now seems ready to help only because the Institute of Medicine report showed the way.

That's their job, it seems. Our was to fly aeromedical evacuation. Both are important jobs with people's lives in the balance. We did our jobs to perfection. The airplane business is like that...imperfection equals death. The medical business of aeromedical evacuation is like that, too. Imperfection equals patient suffering or death. We did our jobs to perfection.

Can you imaging their take on us if we waited four years to do our jobs, getting around to picking up a load of patients? And doing our job only when forced to?

No...we were volunteers. We were professional and we were caring. The nation, and our fellow servicemembers, could and did count on us. No four year delay like we were handed by the VA.

Inspector General Scolds VA VHA for Deceiving Congress & Veterans on Fact Sheet

More scandal added to VA's Year of Scandals. Here...a deliberate deception of the House Veterans Affairs Committee as confirmed by VA's own Inspector General today, and reported in USA Today and other journals. (note: see related C-123 post.) Secretary McDonald personally apologized, stating, "VA has a responsibility to communicate clearly and accurately to Congress, veterans and the American public."

OIG evaluated Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA’s) review of “unresolved” consults and the accuracy of VA’s summary, the National Consult Delay Review Fact Sheet (Fact Sheet), as requested by the Chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee (HVAC).

Unresolved consults are requests for consultations that are open or active in patients’ electronic health records. In September 2012, VHA initiated a multi-phased review of consults that were unresolved for more than 90 days. By May 2014, the number of unresolved consults had decreased considerably.

However, because VHA did not implement appropriate controls, we found it lacks reasonable assurance that facilities appropriately reviewed and resolved consults; closed consults only after ensuring veterans had received the requested services, when appropriate; and, where consult delays contributed to patient harm, notified patients as required by VHA policy. Our review of the Fact Sheet found several key statements related to the scope and results of VHA’s review of unresolved consults were misleading or incorrect.

These statements were repeated by VHA leaders at meetings with congressional staff and during media events. In July 2014, VHA issued a letter to the Chairman of the HVAC that included information intended to clarify statements in the Fact Sheet.

We recommended that the Interim Under Secretary for Health (1) conduct a systematic assessment of the processes each VA medical facility used to address unresolved consults during VHA's system-wide consult review; (2) ensure that if a medical facility's processes are found to have been inconsistent with VHA guidance on addressing unresolved consults, action is taken to confirm that patients have received appropriate care; and (3) after reviewing the circumstances of any inappropriate resolution of consults, confer with the Office of Human Resources and the Office of General Counsel or other relevant agency to determine the appropriate administrative action to take, if any.

Its a Deal – House & Senate Agree on Veterans Bill

They pulled it off somehow. 

Last week's mess with the House and Senate Veterans Affairs leaders disconnecting over funding for a vital veterans' bill was alarming. The congressional recess beginning this Friday might have spelled continued disaster for veterans nationwide, with proposed solutions to the current scandal abandoned.

But they did it. Senator Bernie Sanders, supported firmly by his Ranking Member, struck a compromise over the weekend with Congressman Miller, reducing the Senate's $35 billion goal, but increasing the House amount of just $10 billion, to $17 billion.

Amazing that this is the same figure quoted by Acting Secretary Gibbons for VA's immediate needs. Amazing, too, that Congress did something real for a change.

Congratulations for all the hard work on the Hill!