VA cuts part of the Clinton administartion plan...shame on you AS for lying...again. (BTW, it was a good idea)
Statement of
VA NY/NJ Network Director
James J. Farsetta, FACHE
before the U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Human Resources
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight
August 4, 1997
INTRODUCTION
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee and provide information regarding the restructuring of services and the quality of care at the Castle Point and Montrose VA Medical Centers.
As you know, in recent years VA had been receiving mounting criticism from Congress, GAO, private health care systems and veterans about being a bureaucracy that cared for too few veterans, with too many hospitals and too many empty beds. In acknowledgment of these varied concerns the Veterans Health Administration nearly two years ago adopted a new vision for how veterans health care would be delivered.
Dr. Kizer, the Under Secretary for Health, published his "VISION for CHANGE." In that document, which was shared with Congress and other stakeholders, he outlined a plan to streamline the bureaucracy, reduce excess staffing, close unused beds, improve patient satisfaction, and shift resources to take care of more veterans on an outpatient basis, closer to their homes. A new network structure of 22 Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISN) was set up to ensure quality care and improve efficiency.
(ggg) You are a joke and a serial liar.
Bush cut VA Hospital funding right after he came into office. He slashed 90 doctors and 900 nurses. I got that info directly from a VA doctor who works in the West LA VA hospital. I confirmed that in 2003.
That was just for starters. But there was more. Bush slashed longterm health care and disability payments, then after the war started he didn't put it back. Instead, many wounded troops came back from Iraq and were charged for medical care and even food in the hospitals. Then the plan to shut down Walter Reed.
It was Pelosi, Kerry and more liberal congressmen who fought to get the health care benefits for vets re-instated. The GOP finally forced Bush to put back 1 billion just because they were afraid of it as an election issue in 2006. That's the only reason Bush agreed, not out of concern for wounded troops. Bottomline, Bush is no friend of the troops.
Clearly, Bushies want the wounded troops to start paying their HMO and Pharma friends and to make them more profits. They frown on free health care from the government, except in their own cases of course. |
