OPINION:
During the past couple of weeks we’ve learned more of the obscene tactic at Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals accused of creating secret appointment lists to hide wait times for our veterans. At first, it was the shock of learning about the deaths of 40 of our patriots may be due to this obscenity at the VA in Phoenix.
Now it seems that may just be the tip of the iceberg. A whistleblower has come forward claiming Chicago’s Hines VA Medical Center also keeps secret lists in order to falsify the appointment wait times. CBS News spoke with VA social worker Germaine Clarno, who is alleging the lists are not just to game the required appointment wait time, but also to collect bonuses for doing so.
When asked by CBS about how far the fraud goes, Ms. Clarno said it was “hospitalwide.”
“We’re talking about surgery, radiology, women’s clinic, all those different areas, all the specialties, all the clinics,” she said.
It’s an apparent systemwide fraud in a bureaucracy that sees our veterans not as its clients and patients, but as numbers on a piece of paper to shuffle, lie to and lose.
Most of us want to believe that not all VA hospitals are engaging in this catastrophe, and that’s all the more reason to establish a criminal investigation now, to treat this as the emergency it is and to stop it in its tracks.
SEE ALSO: Obama’s past work for veterans doesn’t placate vets groups on Phoenix VA scandal
The cruelty of this behavior, which has very possibly led to the deaths of so many in Phoenix alone, exposes the natural inhumanity of the liberal bureaucracy. Now we know what happens when government controls health care and people become less important than the budget.
If there’s anyone who deserves free health care, it’s our veterans, who risk their lives in theaters of war. In our volunteer military, they are the heroes who freely agree to give everything, perhaps even their lives, to protect our nation, our future and liberty around the world.
Yet, when they return home and need us, our government employees throw them into a machine that not only doesn’t give a darn, but uses them as a pawns in a vile effort to get cash for themselves.
It’s monstrous, and not surprising. We’ve now seen this heinous disregard for the individual at every level of the federal government. Whether it’s spying on Americans, using the Internal Revenue Service to punish political opponents, abandoning diplomats to terrorists, delivering guns into the bloody paws of Mexican drug cartels, or trying to destroy the private health care system in America, there is a dangerous disconnection with normal decision-making and contempt for the basic rights of human beings.
We shouldn’t be surprised that the almost sociopathic attitude on display everyday by the Obama administration is infecting the federal system as a whole.
Strangely, if we turn from veterans to traitors, however, we learn just how much the bureaucracy can make happen in the name of health care.
Politico reports the Pentagon has approved convicted traitor Bradley Manning for transfer from prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., to a civilian prison so he can receive “gender treatment.” Manning, convicted of sending classified documents to WikiLeaks, has changed his name to “Chelsea,” wants hormone therapy and other medical treatment so he can realize his true self. Or something.
You see, doctors have diagnosed Manning with “gender dysphoria,” or the feeling of being a woman trapped in a man’s body. The New York Daily News reports: “By November, a military doctor there [at Leavenworth] had approved a treatment plan, including hormone therapy, but it was sent higher up the chain of command for consideration, according to a complaint filed by Manning in March over the delay in getting treatment.”
Oh, brother. Prisoners should have health care, but not the extraordinary variety, like organ transplants or sex-reassignment surgery. Rewarding criminals with access to health care that far eclipses what the average American can hope for is ridiculous, insulting and should be stopped.
Consider this in the midst of the apparently deliberate health care neglect of our veterans. Here we have a convicted traitor whining about feeling like a woman in a man’s body and then having the gall to complain about delays in “treatment.”
The system then jumps into action making it possible for this jerk to receive what could be well over $100,000 worth of treatment, funded completely by the taxpayer, of course. Hormone replacement alone could cost upwards of $200 a month, for life.
On the Manning situation, The Associated Press notes, “Some officials have said privately that keeping the soldier in a military prison and unable to have treatment could amount to cruel and unusual punishment.”
Actually, these days being a convicted traitor gets you the most expensive and VIP health care possible. On the other hand, if you’re a loyal and brave veteran, your hospital puts you on a secret wait list until you die.
Which would you say is cruel and unusual?
Update: Watch Tammy Bruce talk about the VA scandal on Fox News.
Tammy Bruce is a radio talk-show host, New York Times best-selling author and Fox News and PJTV contributor.
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