FAILURES BY THE VETERAN AFFAIRS ADMINISTRATION

 A CONTINUATION OF FAILURES BY THE VETERAN AFFAIRS ADMINISTRATION… A Senate investigative probe utilizing the Inspector General’s Office from the Department of Homeland Security and the Government Affairs Committee into the Veteran Affairs Medical Centers, discounted key evidence and witness testimony during its investigation. Including needlessly narrowing its inquiry and maintained no standard for determining wrongdoing. Furthermore, the Inspector General’s Office decided NOT TO RELEASE its investigation report, which concluded two providers at the facility, had been prescribing alarming levels of narcotics, to label just one example. Despite the fact that multiple VA Inspector General reports have linked many VA patient care problems to widespread mismanagement within VA facilities and GAO findings that VA bonus pay has no clear link to performance, the Department has consistently defended its celebration of Executives who presided over these events, while giving them glowing performance reviews and cash bonuses of up to $63,000. For example, Diana Rubens, the VA Executive in charge of the nearly 60 offices that process disability benefits compensation claims, collected almost $60,000 in bonuses while presiding over a near seven-fold increase in backlogged claims… VA Construction Chief Glenn Haggstrom collected almost $55,000 in performance bonuses despite presiding over a host of major construction projects plagued by years-long delays and combined cost overruns of $1.5 billion… Dallas VA Medical Center Director Jeff Milligan and regional director Lawrence Biro have received a combined $50,000 in bonuses since 2011 despite a series of allegations from VA workers, patients and family members regarding poor care at the facility as well as more than 30 certification agency complaints against the medical center in the last three years… The director of VA’s Philadelphia regional office, Thomas Lastowka, received a $23,000 bonus in 2011 despite a doubling in the backlog of disability compensation claims at the office between 2010 and 2011… Carl Lowe, the former director of the VA regional office in Waco, Texas, raked in more than $53,000 in bonuses as the office’s average disability claims processing time grew to historic levels, forcing veterans to wait longer than anywhere else in the country… These are just a few examples, but to continue to add insult to injury; the Department of Homeland Security still classifies all Veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan War as a source of “Home Grown” Terrorist… We, as Veterans, are being dishonored..