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2014 Veterans Health Administration controversy article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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2014 Veterans Health Administration controversy has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. | |||||||||||||
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A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the "
Did you know?" column on
June 6, 2014. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that as of June 5, 2014,
at least 35 U.S. veterans are known to have died while waiting for Veterans Health Administration care in the Phoenix VHA system? | |||||||||||||
Current status: Good article |
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The name of this article should reflect what it really is, a controversy, not a scandal. It's clear that the right wing is considering it a scandal because they just hate a black man in the white house, not to mention they were racist against an Asian-American when he ran the VA. It's just another phony scandal the right-wing made up because they hate the black president so much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1004:B011:2CF1:225:FF:FE4F:3B8E ( talk) 23:53, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
_________
_________
_________
Information in this source could potentially be used here. Just a suggestion. -- Philpill691 ( talk) 00:04, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
GA toolbox |
---|
Reviewing |
Reviewer: Peaceray ( talk · contribs) 01:57, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria
This article qualifies as a Good Article.
Some whistleblowers are getting restitution for the retaliation they got in the past, according to http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_VETERANS_HEALTH_CARE?SITE=AP - Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner congratulated the VA on correcting a couple dozen cases, the article said, while presently investigating 120 cases. - 173.16.85.205 ( talk) 08:40, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
I think it's important to say that the wait times in the private sector are usually longer than 14 days.
This WP:RS says that most private health care systems have wait times longer than the V.A., and longer than 14 days.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/06/28/should-the-veterans-health-care-system-be-privatized
Room for Debate: Should the Veterans Health Care System be Privatized?
New York Times
June 28, 2016
Phillip Longman, author of "Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Care Would Work Better for Everyone."
"Congressional grandstanding and sensational headlines notwithstanding, wait times at the V.A., for example, are generally in line with those experienced by patients in private health care systems."
He cites this primary source:
http://www.merritthawkins.com/2014-survey/patientwaittime.aspx
Physician Appointment Wait Times and
Medicaid and Medicare Acceptance Rates
2014
Merritt Hawkins
http://www.merritthawkins.com/uploadedFiles/MerrittHawkings/Surveys/mha2014waitsurvPDF.pdf
-- Nbauman ( talk) 17:55, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
The section, "Patient wait time data," looks like original research WP:OR.
First, it's a primary source.
It also seems to violate WP:MEDMOS "Extract the pertinent information rather than just dumping low-level facts in a big list."
I don't see how this adds anything to the article. What does it mean? Are these wait times supposed to be good? Bad? Better than comparable private hospitals? Worse?
Most significantly, Phillip Longman said that there is a great geographic variation in wait times. So some VA hospitals will have much longer wait times, and some will have much less, than this table.
I propose deleting this section, unless there is any objection. -- Nbauman ( talk) 13:47, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
I'm surprised that there is no mention in this article of the Koch Brothers or Concerned Veterans for America.
http://www.stripes.com/opinion/vets-should-be-wary-of-cva-pitchforks-and-torches-1.284769
Vets should be wary of CVA pitchforks and torches
By Tom Philpott
Stars and Stripes
May 23, 2014
In the thick of this is Concerned Veterans for America, posing as a vet advocacy group and being rewarded for it. CVA press releases usually are partisan attacks. Its spokesman, Pete Hegseth, an Iraq war vet and Republican who ran for a U.S. Senate in 2012, is quoted often by major news outlets without mention of press reports associating CVA with the Koch brothers, libertarian billionaires who create public interest groups to oppose big government. That’s fine. That’s protected speech. A CVA spokesman told me last year it won't reveal donor information.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/maraprmay-2016/the-va-isnt-broken-yet/
The VA Isn’t Broken, Yet
Inside the Koch brothers’ campaign to invent a scandal and dismantle the country’s most successful health care system.
March/April/May 2016
by Alicia Mundy
(Mundy says that the ulterior motive behind the wating-list scandal was the desire of the Koch brothers and Tea Party congressmen to privatize the VA system. The traditional veterans service organizations, including VFW, opposed privatization. So in 2012, conservatives funded by the Koch brothers created Concerned Veterans for America, to advocate market-based choices. The scandal was first announced by Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL), another Koch-funded politician, in the 2014 hearings of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. Another one of their issues was arguing that it should be easier to fire VA employees.)
Lots more WP:RSs with a Google search for Concerned Veterans for America, including a Rachel Maddow episode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-va0QEipIk http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/2016-01-22 -- Nbauman ( talk) 17:23, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
Calling this a "scandal of 2014" doesn't really fit the content. The problems definitely emerged in 2014 but they were longstanding and the result of many prior decisions - including dramatic rise in number of veterans needing its services after the wars in afghanistan and iraq. This is not a point event like 9/11.... am trying to think how we should name this page. Jytdog ( talk) 14:33, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
I suggest to add a paragraph about the “Improving Accountability and Whistleblower Protection”? A significant amount of veterans and VA employees were affected by it. How about the draft paragraph below? With both media and official sources.
On April 27, 2017
President Trump signed executive order 13793.
[1] Which is titled VA “Improving Accountability and Whistleblower Protection” Act. To ensure that veterans receive the highest level of services, and that all VA
whistleblower employees are protected against retaliation if they come forth and expose alleged wrongdoing.
[2]
[3] On November 11, 2017
Vice President Pence stated that the successful Act resulted so far in over 1,500 employees fired or suspended for negligent behavior.
[4]
[5]
{{
cite news}}
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(
help)
{{
cite news}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url=
(
help)
Francewhoa ( talk) 05:49, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
Here's a good source for criticizing privatization.
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/30/david_shulkins_firing_at_the_va
David Shulkin’s Firing at the VA Is Latest Step in Trump-Koch Push to Privatize Veterans’ Healthcare
Democracy Now
March 30, 2018
Suzanne Gordon argues that the private sector doesn't have the capacity to handle veterans from the VA, charges more, and has worse outcomes. -- Nbauman ( talk) 15:47, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-says-veterans-wait-too-long-for-health-care-vas-33000-vacancies-might-have-something-to-do-with-that/2018/04/10/d20bc890-3ccf-11e8-974f-aacd97698cef_story.html
Trump says veterans wait too long for health care. VA’s 33,000 vacancies might have something to do with that.
By Emily Wax-Thibodeaux
Washington Post
April 10, 2018
The Department of Veterans Affairs, facing intense scrutiny amid reports of widespread dysfunction and a push by the Trump administration to outsource more medical care, has tens of thousands of full- and part-time vacancies nationwide, according to data compiled by veterans advocates, lawmakers and federal unions.
Max Stier, president and chief executive of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, said that when Trump took office, he put into place a federal hiring freeze that has been a particularproblem for VA as it looks to add staff.
“Historically, one of the main benefits of working at the VA is stability. Unfortunately, people working in the health-care field are increasingly not viewing the VA as stable, and it is making recruitment more difficult because of that,” said Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees.
ProPublica had 2 stories on political influence of the Trump Administration on the VA, much of it involving privatization.
https://www.propublica.org/article/ike-perlmutter-bruce-moskowitz-marc-sherman-shadow-rulers-of-the-va
The Shadow Rulers of the VA
How Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter and two other Mar-a-Lago cronies are secretly shaping the Trump administration’s veterans policies.
by Isaac Arnsdorf
ProPublica
Aug. 7, 2018
During the campaign, Trump championed letting veterans see any doctor they choose, inside or outside the VA system. But Shulkin warned that such an approach was likely to result in poorer care at a higher cost. His preferred solution was integrating government-run VA care with a network of private providers.
...they proposed inviting private health care executives to tell the VA which services they should outsource to private providers like themselves.
https://www.propublica.org/article/steve-cohen-privatized-ptsd-veterans-clinic
Steve Cohen Is Spending Millions to Help Veterans. Why Are People Angry?
The hedge fund billionaire’s efforts to assist veterans with PTSD have thrust him into the fight over privatizing the VA and led some people to question his motives.
by Isaac Arnsdorf
ProPublica
Aug. 3, 2018
The Cohen Network has become a test case for both sides. It is either proof that the private sector can do the job better than the VA — or a template for diverting taxpayer dollars to unaccountable private groups.
--
Nbauman (
talk) 03:03, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Paul Krugman is a notorious socialist hack. In my opinion Wikipedia's inclusion in this article of Krugman's leftist apologia in defense of 'socialized' medicine is gratuitous, irrelevant and indicative of the pervasive liberal slant of this website. 2603:8001:C200:1637:65A5:867A:C9C9:4523 ( talk) 22:57, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
Krugman's defense of 'socialized medicine' is especially ludicrous given that many if not most of the remedies for the long VA wait times and substandard care for veterans detailed in this article involved moving to private sector providers. As a totally disabled veteran (TDIU) I have personally benefited greatly from these legislative remedies. This IMO further undermines Wikipedia's unjustified and obviously agenda-driven inclusion of Krugman's socialist cheerleading. 2603:8001:C200:1637:65A5:867A:C9C9:4523 ( talk) 23:08, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
2014 Veterans Health Administration controversy article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
2014 Veterans Health Administration controversy has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the "
Did you know?" column on
June 6, 2014. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that as of June 5, 2014,
at least 35 U.S. veterans are known to have died while waiting for Veterans Health Administration care in the Phoenix VHA system? | |||||||||||||
Current status: Good article |
This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The name of this article should reflect what it really is, a controversy, not a scandal. It's clear that the right wing is considering it a scandal because they just hate a black man in the white house, not to mention they were racist against an Asian-American when he ran the VA. It's just another phony scandal the right-wing made up because they hate the black president so much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1004:B011:2CF1:225:FF:FE4F:3B8E ( talk) 23:53, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
_________
_________
_________
Information in this source could potentially be used here. Just a suggestion. -- Philpill691 ( talk) 00:04, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
GA toolbox |
---|
Reviewing |
Reviewer: Peaceray ( talk · contribs) 01:57, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria
This article qualifies as a Good Article.
Some whistleblowers are getting restitution for the retaliation they got in the past, according to http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_VETERANS_HEALTH_CARE?SITE=AP - Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner congratulated the VA on correcting a couple dozen cases, the article said, while presently investigating 120 cases. - 173.16.85.205 ( talk) 08:40, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
I think it's important to say that the wait times in the private sector are usually longer than 14 days.
This WP:RS says that most private health care systems have wait times longer than the V.A., and longer than 14 days.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/06/28/should-the-veterans-health-care-system-be-privatized
Room for Debate: Should the Veterans Health Care System be Privatized?
New York Times
June 28, 2016
Phillip Longman, author of "Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Care Would Work Better for Everyone."
"Congressional grandstanding and sensational headlines notwithstanding, wait times at the V.A., for example, are generally in line with those experienced by patients in private health care systems."
He cites this primary source:
http://www.merritthawkins.com/2014-survey/patientwaittime.aspx
Physician Appointment Wait Times and
Medicaid and Medicare Acceptance Rates
2014
Merritt Hawkins
http://www.merritthawkins.com/uploadedFiles/MerrittHawkings/Surveys/mha2014waitsurvPDF.pdf
-- Nbauman ( talk) 17:55, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
The section, "Patient wait time data," looks like original research WP:OR.
First, it's a primary source.
It also seems to violate WP:MEDMOS "Extract the pertinent information rather than just dumping low-level facts in a big list."
I don't see how this adds anything to the article. What does it mean? Are these wait times supposed to be good? Bad? Better than comparable private hospitals? Worse?
Most significantly, Phillip Longman said that there is a great geographic variation in wait times. So some VA hospitals will have much longer wait times, and some will have much less, than this table.
I propose deleting this section, unless there is any objection. -- Nbauman ( talk) 13:47, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
I'm surprised that there is no mention in this article of the Koch Brothers or Concerned Veterans for America.
http://www.stripes.com/opinion/vets-should-be-wary-of-cva-pitchforks-and-torches-1.284769
Vets should be wary of CVA pitchforks and torches
By Tom Philpott
Stars and Stripes
May 23, 2014
In the thick of this is Concerned Veterans for America, posing as a vet advocacy group and being rewarded for it. CVA press releases usually are partisan attacks. Its spokesman, Pete Hegseth, an Iraq war vet and Republican who ran for a U.S. Senate in 2012, is quoted often by major news outlets without mention of press reports associating CVA with the Koch brothers, libertarian billionaires who create public interest groups to oppose big government. That’s fine. That’s protected speech. A CVA spokesman told me last year it won't reveal donor information.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/maraprmay-2016/the-va-isnt-broken-yet/
The VA Isn’t Broken, Yet
Inside the Koch brothers’ campaign to invent a scandal and dismantle the country’s most successful health care system.
March/April/May 2016
by Alicia Mundy
(Mundy says that the ulterior motive behind the wating-list scandal was the desire of the Koch brothers and Tea Party congressmen to privatize the VA system. The traditional veterans service organizations, including VFW, opposed privatization. So in 2012, conservatives funded by the Koch brothers created Concerned Veterans for America, to advocate market-based choices. The scandal was first announced by Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL), another Koch-funded politician, in the 2014 hearings of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. Another one of their issues was arguing that it should be easier to fire VA employees.)
Lots more WP:RSs with a Google search for Concerned Veterans for America, including a Rachel Maddow episode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-va0QEipIk http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/2016-01-22 -- Nbauman ( talk) 17:23, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
Calling this a "scandal of 2014" doesn't really fit the content. The problems definitely emerged in 2014 but they were longstanding and the result of many prior decisions - including dramatic rise in number of veterans needing its services after the wars in afghanistan and iraq. This is not a point event like 9/11.... am trying to think how we should name this page. Jytdog ( talk) 14:33, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
I suggest to add a paragraph about the “Improving Accountability and Whistleblower Protection”? A significant amount of veterans and VA employees were affected by it. How about the draft paragraph below? With both media and official sources.
On April 27, 2017
President Trump signed executive order 13793.
[1] Which is titled VA “Improving Accountability and Whistleblower Protection” Act. To ensure that veterans receive the highest level of services, and that all VA
whistleblower employees are protected against retaliation if they come forth and expose alleged wrongdoing.
[2]
[3] On November 11, 2017
Vice President Pence stated that the successful Act resulted so far in over 1,500 employees fired or suspended for negligent behavior.
[4]
[5]
{{
cite news}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url=
(
help)
{{
cite news}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url=
(
help)
Francewhoa ( talk) 05:49, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
Here's a good source for criticizing privatization.
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/30/david_shulkins_firing_at_the_va
David Shulkin’s Firing at the VA Is Latest Step in Trump-Koch Push to Privatize Veterans’ Healthcare
Democracy Now
March 30, 2018
Suzanne Gordon argues that the private sector doesn't have the capacity to handle veterans from the VA, charges more, and has worse outcomes. -- Nbauman ( talk) 15:47, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-says-veterans-wait-too-long-for-health-care-vas-33000-vacancies-might-have-something-to-do-with-that/2018/04/10/d20bc890-3ccf-11e8-974f-aacd97698cef_story.html
Trump says veterans wait too long for health care. VA’s 33,000 vacancies might have something to do with that.
By Emily Wax-Thibodeaux
Washington Post
April 10, 2018
The Department of Veterans Affairs, facing intense scrutiny amid reports of widespread dysfunction and a push by the Trump administration to outsource more medical care, has tens of thousands of full- and part-time vacancies nationwide, according to data compiled by veterans advocates, lawmakers and federal unions.
Max Stier, president and chief executive of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, said that when Trump took office, he put into place a federal hiring freeze that has been a particularproblem for VA as it looks to add staff.
“Historically, one of the main benefits of working at the VA is stability. Unfortunately, people working in the health-care field are increasingly not viewing the VA as stable, and it is making recruitment more difficult because of that,” said Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees.
ProPublica had 2 stories on political influence of the Trump Administration on the VA, much of it involving privatization.
https://www.propublica.org/article/ike-perlmutter-bruce-moskowitz-marc-sherman-shadow-rulers-of-the-va
The Shadow Rulers of the VA
How Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter and two other Mar-a-Lago cronies are secretly shaping the Trump administration’s veterans policies.
by Isaac Arnsdorf
ProPublica
Aug. 7, 2018
During the campaign, Trump championed letting veterans see any doctor they choose, inside or outside the VA system. But Shulkin warned that such an approach was likely to result in poorer care at a higher cost. His preferred solution was integrating government-run VA care with a network of private providers.
...they proposed inviting private health care executives to tell the VA which services they should outsource to private providers like themselves.
https://www.propublica.org/article/steve-cohen-privatized-ptsd-veterans-clinic
Steve Cohen Is Spending Millions to Help Veterans. Why Are People Angry?
The hedge fund billionaire’s efforts to assist veterans with PTSD have thrust him into the fight over privatizing the VA and led some people to question his motives.
by Isaac Arnsdorf
ProPublica
Aug. 3, 2018
The Cohen Network has become a test case for both sides. It is either proof that the private sector can do the job better than the VA — or a template for diverting taxpayer dollars to unaccountable private groups.
--
Nbauman (
talk) 03:03, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Paul Krugman is a notorious socialist hack. In my opinion Wikipedia's inclusion in this article of Krugman's leftist apologia in defense of 'socialized' medicine is gratuitous, irrelevant and indicative of the pervasive liberal slant of this website. 2603:8001:C200:1637:65A5:867A:C9C9:4523 ( talk) 22:57, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
Krugman's defense of 'socialized medicine' is especially ludicrous given that many if not most of the remedies for the long VA wait times and substandard care for veterans detailed in this article involved moving to private sector providers. As a totally disabled veteran (TDIU) I have personally benefited greatly from these legislative remedies. This IMO further undermines Wikipedia's unjustified and obviously agenda-driven inclusion of Krugman's socialist cheerleading. 2603:8001:C200:1637:65A5:867A:C9C9:4523 ( talk) 23:08, 11 October 2022 (UTC)