Department Of Veterans Affairs Fy 2012 Budget

[carlie]

Well, this for sure is one damned looooong read, but for me it was worth

taking the time.

IMO - In totality, it's nothing more than politics and bull-sheet, at it's finest.

Please excuse me for just a moment _ - _ - _ - . . . . .

Sorry - I had to go wipe all the sheet out of my brain and a rag - - -

to clean the barf off my monitor.

Same old - good old boy bull-sheet - just with a few new faces,

dripping the same stinking sheet from between some different lips.

Most of it all goes something like this:

Schmuck #2 gets introduced and immediately congratulates the Schmuck #1 -

(that introduced him to speak) - for his accomplishments.

Schmuck #2 spends his time talking about looking forward to blah - blah -benefits will be administered

with optimum levels of efficiency and effectiveness, blah - blah, congress is working hard,

blah - blah . . . .

Then Schmuck #3 is introduced by Schmuck #2 and begins thanking and praising him

and Schmuck #1 for all the wonderful work they have been doing.

starts in babbling about the backlog of claims, says I've been at this for 30 years and it's been an issue.

Blah - blah, reinstated Priority 8 veterans, blah - blah - Agent Orange, blah - blah.

These Schmucks don't even know nor will most even hazard a guess as to what THEY define as, a claim that is in backlog.

Even one schmuck that feels veterans would be better served, if the VBA just let the doctor

make the decisions on if their diagnosis is related to service, the percentage and effective date.

ONE PERSON - having carte blanche authority on the whole ball of wax.

Here's his quote below.

"Fast forward three or four decades and you have very subtle, very difficult questions of medical causation and effect, which are beyond the ken of a lot of laypeople. Which causes me to think if we are going to spend massive sums of money training more and more people to try and do all of these different jobs at once, be both advocate, judge, jury and medical examiner all at once, you are going to get somebody who is not really good at doing any of them trying to do all of them.

Now if that is the nature of the problem challenging us it seems to me that we ought to look for places where folks do make these kinds of decisions on a snap basis all the time, and they have a lot on the line, and they make these decisions very effectively precisely because they have the expertise and they have a lot on the line.

I look at doctors as having to make decisions like this all the time. Every time a doctor cuts on a patient or prescribes a medicine they are taking their career in their hands. And if they do it negligently they can get sued. If they intentionally misprescribe or mistreat they can go to jail. So there are very, very severe consequences for people who make these life and death decisions all the time.

Now a death decision is a pretty good analogy, because we actually let doctors make the most awesome decision about whether or not to turn life support off when someone is no longer living, when they are brain dead. Now it seems to me if we can give doctors the awesome power to turn life support off, we ought to give them the authority to turn life support on."

Then more speakers and more blah,blah, blah.

IT innovations - computerized records Service Organizations, blah, blah.

NOW - over about the next 3 minutes of reading - I could feel the curd growing

inside my stomach - the kind where you feel the warmth start and your throat begin to spasm.

NOPE - NOT JUST MY GERD ACTING UP THIS TIME.

The next part might make you feel fairly close - even if only as a verbal metaphor - - -

here it comes . . .

" I will turn to our budget. As I noted in my statement it is really three categories, or best looked at that way. The pro bono funding, our operating budget, and the Veterans Courthouse.

I will speak to the Veterans Courthouse and defer to my statement for the others. The amount that we requested is that needed to continue toward construction of a Veterans Courthouse.

In these fiscally constrained times, the priority attached to this project can only be made

by you and Congress as a whole. We are not privy to the needs of the other entities that share your portfolio or the needs of the Nation.

Moreover, the need for a stand alone courthouse is not driven by space, equipment, or supply needs alone.

It is driven by the sense of major veterans groups and the sense of Congresses over the past several years that veterans, who only recently in the grand scheme of American history have been granted the right to judicial review of their claims, should have a courthouse

at least as equal to the courthouses provided to hear the claims of everyday citizens.

As you know, working in the grand house of the people, Congress, buildings, particularly government buildings, represent more than just a place to work.

They speak to the respect our Nation has for the work that is being done within them. Courthouses reflect respect for the rule of law and particularly in the case of our veterans, a Veterans Courthouse, as so aptly stated in H.R. 3936 would be,

and I quote, “symbolically significant of the high esteem the Nation holds for its veterans,”

and would, “express the gratitude and respect of the Nation for the sacrifices of those serving, those who have served in the Armed Forces, and their families.”

Whether a dedicated Courthouse is to be funded now or at some later date is a decision the Committee and Congress must make, weighing this project against others.

Although belts must be tightened, some buildings will be funded. As noted in my written statement, if a Courthouse is to be built we support those who suggest it should be a Veterans Courthouse.

As to the specific budget request, which is $25 million, it is the amount that GSA has advised can prudently be spent over the next year. I hasten to add that in addition to reexamining the latest projected costs of the Courthouse there remain two significant contingencies to constructing it on the currently identified location at 49 L Street. One is whether the City will close or restrict traffic on a side street to accommodate the security needs of the Court.

And the second is, can the additional property needed to properly site the Courthouse be purchased within the estimated amount. So those are two contingencies that still exist."

BLAH - BLAH -

"But I have programmed if we do have the funding this year, money for certain renovations to our current space. VA is supposed to move out of the building. We would then move into a good portion of the sixth floor. I would move some of our Central Legal Staff, if you will, down so that we could put the two new chambers on the secured top two floors. And so that type of construction, movement expenses, we would have to undertake with the additional chambers coming in. Short of that, yes sir. We have, we can perform our mission. The reason that we have a number of cases pending decision is because we are three judges down right now."

It just goes on and on and on . . . . .

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with the same old type of bull-sheet, they always get away with,

and before too long - they will have their damned Court House built.

Seems like caring for veterans comes second to the honor they want to bestow upon veterans like having a fancy Court House.

Seems like they would concentrate on making the programs run right

so veterans no longer need - a Court House.

JMHO

Full Document:

http://veterans.hous...DAMA3-17-11.htm

[john999]

Some pollitician wants his name of that courthouse. The "Joe Blow Veterans Affairs Courthouse" or something like that. Nobody cares what goes on in the courthouse or what happens to the vets who enter the Tiger's Mouth, just so somebody gets credit for building it.

[71M10]

Seems like for 25 million, you could hire about 4 people for each VARO for three years, that would be dedicated to reading claims and c-files. If someone actually read these before the initial decision is made it would reduce a whole lot of appeals and probably speed-up the process overall.

Isn't propossing a "Veterans" courthouse an admission that the VA, Congress and Executive branch have whole heartedly turned thier back on a "non-Adversarial" system.

Veterans do not need a seperate court system, When the BVA has rendered a decision that a veteran disagrees with let us go to Federal district court and have it heard there! Are we saying that 38 USC can't be interpreted by a normal federal judge? Let us go to a court where we can supeana records, let us call those C&P examiners and RVSO's in and have them testify under oath and when we prove with thier own documents that they have either perjured themselves or misrepresented facts in their submissions, we should send them to Jail. It will only take about 4-5, seven year sentences and veterans will start geting the type of non-adversarial system they are supposed to have.

My nickles worth (used to be 2 cents ...infaltion)

[Pete53]

My grades for VA

Department that pays me A

Heath Care a C+

VARO F-

Voc Rehab B+

Mental Health D

I have dealt with the VA for 21 years and am grateful that I have the VA and mystified how poorly some of the critical elements are run. The VA has an obligation to Veterans to make timely decisions and provide health care that is at least equal to what most Americans have now.

The biggest problem is Congress and the VA Administration.

I had a firend in the DAV that used to tell me after you got off the first floor the VA was pretty good.