Back in the 1980s, while pastoring a church in Michigan, I had an older US Veteran who had to travel all the way across Michigan to get VA health care. He said that virtually every time that he went to the VA in Ann Arbor, they had lost his records. He would have to start from square one every time, do a load of tests, and start over.
Credit must be given to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton for fixing that mess by requiring that all records be computerized and all VA clinics networked. Around 2000 the networking was done, and now a Veteran can move from New York to Los Angeles, walk into a VA clinic, and they have everything about him up on the screen.
But, the firing of 800 management VA staff is a great way to drain the swamp. The video made it very clear though that the VA is a bureaucracy with enormous anergy (the ability to resist expending energy). The process Trump has started will need some serious nagging to make sure it really makes a difference in the care veterans receive. The pyramid of power vertically in the VA is extremely treacherous, and I have inside information on that.
An issue not addressed was the state of many VA facilities. While some, like the virtual hacienda of a VA facility in Tucson, Arizona, are spacious and modern, many VA facilities are crowded and sparse on work space.
When I was going to the VA here in Texas, my blood pressure was always seriously elevated. The problem was that they were in a hurry to try to see everyone, so they took my BP without letting me rest. The patient interview room was very small, and various machines were being stored there that should have been out of sight. I also had a lady doctor who came just an inch from threatening me for declining cholesterol medication. With some of the VA doctors you need to take the prescription, collect the drugs, and throw them down the toilet to keep out of trouble.
When the VA clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee developed black mold in the walls, they moved the clinic temporarily to nearby factory warehouse while the black mold was eliminated. The VA should have simply found new and larger facilities.
The bottom line is in the form of another issue that we are not supposed to question. Does America need so many wars, and must we really have US Forces based in 150 nations around the world?
There is NO call for the mammoth presence of the US Military in the world in the papers and documents that founded the USA. It is now political policy of all parties to occupy the world and hold the world hostage to our Military. This results in thousands of Military Veterans discharging every month, and the cost of giving them health care is obscene.
So, as long as the United States, that is, YOU and me and the whole political swamp, believe we have to kick the butt of every nation on earth, the Veteran's Administration will be two steps behind reality forever.
Thanks you, Mr. President for trying, but you will never force the VA to catch up to the demand until you cancel some wars.
