With all the controversy, fraud, and criminality inside the Department of Veterans Affairs, why would the White House even consider opposition to this Bill? Everyone involved, especially our elected Officials needs to get on the bandwagon and try to save the VA from implosion.

http://freebeacon.com/issues/lawmakers-consider-bill-expanding-va-firing-powers/

Lawmakers Consider Bill Expanding VA Firing Powers

White House criticizes efforts to make it easier for agency to remove bad employees

BY: Morgan Chalfant

September 13, 2016 1:05 pm

House lawmakers this week will consider the latest legislative effort to allow the Department of Veterans Affairs to more easily hold employees accountable for misconduct, amid warnings from the Obama administration that the new bill would “undermine” the agency’s workforce.

Ahead of considering the VA Accountability First and Appeals Modernization Act of 2016 on the House floor, the administration expressed concerns over the legislation, labeling provisions that make it easier for the VA to fire or demote employees “misguided and burdensome.” The administration also said in a statement that portions of the legislation raise “constitutional concerns,” including a rule that would shorten the appeals process for employees who are disciplined by the agency.

The development sets up a fight between the White House and Congress over efforts to expand the VA’s firing powers. The Obama administration objected to congressional efforts last year to make it easier for the VA to punish any employee for misconduct or poor performance.

Congress two years ago passed legislation allowing the VA secretary to swiftly fire high-ranking agency officials over mismanagement or misconduct, after staffers at the agency’s network of hospitals were found to be keeping secret lists to hide veterans’ long waits for appointments.

However, the VA said earlier this year that it would no longer use the fast-track firing powers afforded by the 2014 legislation after the Department of Justice decided they were unconstitutional. VA officials have defended the decision, despite criticism from lawmakers and veterans’ groups.

The latest bill, which the House will consider on Tuesday and Wednesday, would eliminate a lengthy appeals process and allow the VA to fire or demote employees more easily for misconduct or poor performance. It also includes other reform measures, including rules aimed at protecting whistleblowers, shortening veterans’ waits to appeal denials of disability benefits, and limiting bonuses paid to VA senior executives.

The legislation was introduced in July by Rep. Jeff Miller (R., Fla.), who chairs the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, and as of Tuesday morning had accumulated more than 30 cosponsors.

“The Administration is strongly committed to strict accountability standards that ensure VA employees act with the best interests of veterans in mind,” the Office of Management and Budget said in astatement Monday evening regarding the legislation. “But the Administration believes that the approach to accountability in the legislation—focused primarily on firing or demoting employees without appropriate or meaningful procedural protections—is misguided and burdensome.”

The administration applauded the provision of the bill aimed at reforming the appeals process for challenging denied disability benefits and said it welcomed the opportunity to work with Congress to address concerns about the legislation.

Miller said that the statement left “wiggle room” for House Democrats to support the bill.

“It’s quite obvious the Obama administration is leaving wiggle room for Democrats to support this commonsense bill,” Miller told the Washington Free Beacon Tuesday morning. “That’s because, despite the administration’s allegiance to the union bosses that are fighting to uphold VA’s broken status quo, most sensible people know that without the type of accountability this bill would provide, VA reform will never succeed.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

VA Offers Anti-Corruption Whistleblower $305,000 To Go Away

ANOTHER LITTLE PEEK INTO THE WORLD OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS. HOW HAS ALL THIS GONE SO WRONG?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LUKE ROSIAKInvestigative Reporter11:09 PM 08/30/2016 After ethics officials blocked the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from firing a woman who refused to lie for top bosses, the bosses took a different tack: paying her $305,000 to quit and agree not to apply to the VA again.Her bosses tried to force Rosayma Lopez to write a critical report to be used to terminate Joseph Colon, who had exposed the drunk-driving and illegal-prescription drug arrest of Dewayne Hamlin, director of the VA’s hospital in San Juan.When Lopez said she would stick to the facts, her bosses filed the termination paperwork intended for Colon against her instead.After she sought protection from the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), a federal agency that investigates whistleblower retaliation in government, OSC ordered VA to restore Lopez to her job. But VA refused, instead paying her to sit at home for nine months.When OSC reiterated the demand, VA reluctantly restored her job, but then offered her $150,000 to quit and agree not to re-apply. Lopez declined the offer, which she had never requested, and made clear she just wanted to keep her job.Lopez’s job involves processing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, so VA officials worried she could disclose embarrassing information to future requesters. She was assigned a new boss, who insisted on handling FOIA responses himself, by telling requesters they would be charged thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. To justify the exorbitant charges, he claimed that simple requests that would take five minutes to fulfill would require dozens of hours of top staffers’ time.Lopez was also moved into a trailer without basic equipment needed to do her job like a scanner. She applied for an identical job at another VA hospital, but was never interviewed. The settlement offer was upped to $305,000.The $305,000 offer is still on the table, but Lopez must weigh it against the loss of health insurance and a pension, and the moral implications of taking money to go away quietly after witnessing misconduct.The offer is remarkable, because the VA officials it appears designed to protect — those who are seeking her ouster — have faced no discipline or other consequences, despite repeated declarations by department leaders in Washington, D.C. that retaliation against whistle blowers will not be tolerated.Financial settlements with employees are generally signed by someone in the department headquarters, but VA spokesman James Hutton would not say if Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald supports the $305,000 payment to Lopez.Spokesman Nick Schwellenbach told The Daily Caller News Foundation that OSC isn’t a party to settlement offers, and simply relays management offers, so the complainant can decide on their own whether to accept them. He said investigations that would lead to OSC punishing retaliators, in cases where an agency refuses to punish its own managers, are separate and would take significantly longer.“Our first priority is to try to make a whistleblower whole. For many whistleblowers, that means simply getting back to work and that is what most settlements involve. There are situations, however, where the two parties negotiate the employee’s departure from the agency in exchange for agreed upon terms,” Schwellenbach said.Colon wrote to OSC expressing disappointment at its handling of the Lopez case.“I have the utmost respect for your office but I am truly disappointed that your office would accept any agreement that requires a whistleblower to resign from their job to protect unethical employees at the VA,” Colon wrote.“There should be no discussions that require money in exchange for a whistleblower resignation. We should be embracing whistleblowers, and not trying to get rid of them. American taxpayer money should be used to treat Veterans, and to hold retaliators accountable and not used to silence whistleblowers,” he wrote.The Puerto Rico facility is among the most troubled VA hospitals in the country. As TheDCNF has previously reported, a convicted sex offender works in the facility’s human resources doling out employee discipline.In addition, the supervisor of a major purchase office was hired only weeks after being released from federal prison for credit card theft.And OSC found in 2015 that hospital staff left veterans lying in their own feces for days. The woman in charge of the troubled unit was subsequently promoted.

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Tags: Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Special Counsel

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/30/va-offers-anti-corruption-whistleblower-305000-to-go-away/#ixzz4IvqWB9vI

VA Conducts Nation's Largest Analysis of Veteran Suicide

VA News Release

07/07/2016 09:01 AM EDT

VA Conducts Nation's Largest Analysis of Veteran Suicide

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has undertaken the most comprehensive analysis of Veteran suicide rates in the U.S., examining over 55 million Veteran records from 1979 to 2014 from every state in the nation. The effort extends VA's knowledge from the previous report issued in 2010, which examined three million Veteran records from 20 states were available. Based on the data from 2010, VA estimated the number of Veteran deaths by suicide averaged 22 per day. The current analysis indicates that in 2014, an average of 20 Veterans a day died from suicide.

"One Veteran suicide is one too many, and this collaborative effort provides both updated and comprehensive data that allows us to make better informed decisions on how to prevent this national tragedy," said VA Under Secretary for Health, Dr. David J. Shulkin. "We as a nation must focus on bringing the number of Veteran suicides to zero."

The final report will be publicly released later this month. Key findings of the analysis will include: 65% of all Veterans who died from suicide in 2014 were 50 years of age or older.

Veterans accounted for 18% of all deaths from suicide among U.S. adults. This is a decrease from 22% in 2010. Since 2001, U.S. adult civilian suicides increased 23%, while Veteran suicides increased 32% in the same time period. After controlling for age and gender, this makes the risk of suicide 21% greater for Veterans. Since 2001, the rate of suicide among US Veterans who use VA services increased by 8.8%, while the rate of suicide among Veterans who do not use VA services increased by 38.6%.

In the same time period, the rate of suicide among male Veterans who use VA services increased 11%, while the rate of suicide increased 35% among male Veterans who do not use VA services.

In the same time period, the rate of suicide among female Veterans who use VA services increased 4.6%, while the rate of suicide increased 98% among female Veterans who do not use VA services.

Please also see our Suicide Prevention Fact Sheet at the following link: http://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/Suicide Prevention Fact Sheet New VA Stats 070616 1400.pdf

VA is aggressively undertaking a number of new measures to prevent suicide, including: Ensuring same-day access for Veterans with urgent mental health needs at over 1,000 points of care by the end of calendar year 2016. In fiscal year 2015, more than 1.6 million Veterans received mental health treatment from VA, including at over 150 medical centers, 820 community-based outpatient clinics and 300 Vet Centers that provide readjustment counseling. Veterans also enter VA health care through the Veterans Crisis Line, VA staff on college and university campuses, or other outreach points.

Using predictive modeling to determine which Veterans may be at highest risk of suicide, so providers can intervene early. Veterans in the top 0.1% of risk, who have a 43-fold increased risk of death from suicide within a month, can be identified before clinical signs of suicide are evident in order to save lives before a crisis occurs.

Expanding tele-mental health care by establishing four new regional tele-mental health hubs across the VA healthcare system.

Hiring over 60 new crisis intervention responders for the Veterans Crisis Line. Each responder receives intensive training on a wide variety of topics in crisis intervention, substance use disorders, screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment.

The Next Salvo - Fire For Effect

To:                      VA Inspector General, Dept. of Labor, 

                           NY State Dept. of Health,

                           U.S. Joint Commission, 

                           U.S. Office of Special Counsel, 

                           Martin Evans - Newsday

                           Valerie Bauman - NY Times, 

                           Kristina Rebelo - NY Times

                           

From:               Hutch Dubosque, US Military Veteran

                        10 Woolsey St., Huntington, NY   11743-2641

                        1-631-223-6107(cell) / 1-631-470-0958(home)

                        hutch.dubosque@live.com / dubosquejr@optonline.net

Subject:           Allegations of mismanagement and misconduct at the 

                        Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center

                        79 Middleville Rd., Northport, NY  11768

To Whom It May Concern,

I am a Vietnam Veteran who has been an outpatient at the VA Medical Center in Northport, NY, since 1979. My presence at the Medical Center was limited due to my work schedule until 2009, when I had to retire from work for medical reasons. Since 2009, I have been present at this Facility at least three days a week. There are some issues that have become known to me recently at this Medical Center. I feel these issues need investigating, as I perceive them to be at least unethical, and at most criminal.

In January of this year, 2016, the five Operating Suites were shuttered due to contaminants emanating from the ceiling air ducts. Unless you had an operation scheduled, you never would have known of this occurrence. I was not aware of this situation until early June 2016, and it was then that I learned Veterans were being rescheduled for arbitrary dates in the future, or were being told to go to other VA Medical Facilities in the New York Metro area. Apparently, our local, State, and Federal Legislators were not informed of the situation, either, until June. The Hospital Administration was comfortable waiting for $8 million in Federal funding to renovate the five Operating Suites; a process that would reopen these Suites in 2018, at the earliest, if they could acquire such funding. A combination of two U.S Congressmen and the local Press forced the hand of the Hospital Administration, and a temporary fix was implemented. There is only one problem still not being admitted to, or addressed. The air ducts are 44 years old and, being here on Long Island, have collected sufficient moisture over the years to give rise to black mold (also pervasive in the majority of buildings that were constructed in the late 1920’s). I now have it on reliable authority that the major contaminant coming out of those air ducts was, indeed, black mold. The temporary fix that has been installed will curtail the flow of the black mold, but will never eliminate it. We now have two of the Operating Suites back in operation with a high probability that contaminants will still emanate from the ceiling air ducts. This has been deemed acceptable for the treatment of my fellow Veterans.

 REALLY??

The situation with the Hospital’s Operating Suites may be just the tip of a very large “iceberg”. There are a number of other troubling situations that I have been informed of by Hospital employees who I consider very reliable and trustworthy (Medical Staff members). In an effort to keep this brief, I will list summary thumbnails of each situation I am aware of.

1. The basement of the Hospital houses the Radiology Department and other Departments. In May, it was discovered that the air conditioning unit serving just the basement fell into disrepair and is no longer serviceable. The Hospital Administration deemed it prudent to lease portable A/C units for the summer months at a price of $120.000.00 per month. It would cost in the neighborhood of $75,000.00 to repair the existing unit. I will leave the math up to you. This Administration is apparently waiting on Federal Funding to replace the entire system.
2. It has been brought to my attention that a number of senior Medical Staff and Hospital Administrators have been either coming to work intoxicated, or becoming so while on the job.
3. It has been brought to my attention that there are once-senior Doctors who are drawing a full-time salary from this Hospital, and do not actually work here. They have been seen by Hospital Staff and fellow Veterans enjoying private practice in the local private medical sector, thus receiving two substantial means of income.
4. I realize that, nationally, the Veterans Health and Benefit Administrations have been trying to resolve and fix some large deficiencies in the system. In addressing my local situation, The VA Medical Center Administration in Northport has claimed that they have reduced the appointment “wait-times” to an average of 3.55 days. I can personally attest to wait-times in terms of months, not days. I can only conclude that this Hospital is using some sort of “Voodoo” accounting in arriving at their figures. I have the backing of every fellow Veteran I know on this matter. It seems that our Politicians, the local Press, and the VA’s Office of Inspector General are still “drinking the Kool-Aide” on this matter.

In summation, if I am aware of these few practices and situations, how much more is going on underneath the surface. Usually where there is smoke, there is fire. I am asking for a full independent audit of all business practices at the VA Medical Center in Northport, NY. My fellow local Veterans deserve no less; our Nation’s Veterans deserve no less. I would appreciate your consideration in this, and am willing to discuss any of these situations with you anytime, anywhere.

Thanking you in advance,

___________________________

            Hutch Dubosque

LOCAL VA MEDICAL CENTER - A LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN

- Recent revelations just the tip of the iceberg

A number of issues have surfaced, lately, concerning our local Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northport, NY. The most recent of which has been the controversy and apparent cover-up of the closing down of all the Operating Suites at the Medical Center. I was hearing rumors, then being told by reliable sources inside the Hospital, about the true nature of the closings and the true nature of the reason for the closings. The “management” would have us all believe that miniscule particles of rust were occasionally emerging from the climate control air ducting in the ceilings. A plausibly deniable reason was given for this phenomenon and all further communication went oddly silent. Fortunately for our Veteran Community, this didn’t last too long before the local Press and our local Congressmen got a hold of it. Once that hit the fan, the “problem” was  remedied in the matter of days; after languishing in limbo for four months. What most of the Veterans thought was actually coming out of those ceiling vents, black mold, has been corroborated by the same reliable sources.

It hurts me to say that since that whole fiasco, I have been made aware of some more equally (if not more) damaging information regarding the “management” of this Medical Center. I have been pulled aside and given a detailed insight to other deeds of mismanagement, which, in my opinion,  may border on illegal and criminal. I have corroborated these tidbits of information with other sources, and to a person, what were just rumors have been confirmed as standard operating procedure here at the Northport VAMC. I have also been directed, as a Veteran stakeholder, to bring these allegations and/or practices to the attention of the United States Office of Special Counsel. From what I have been told, the Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General is singing the Company tune, drinking the Kool-Aide, and is completely incompetent in dealing with type and amount of corruption inside this Bureaucracy. The Office of Special Counsel is primarily a layer of protection for governmental whistleblowers. If this is the case, consider me a governmental whistleblower.

So much for the appetizer; now, for the main course and some red meat;

v  Medical Department Heads and Senior Staff have been either showing up for work visibly intoxicated, or becoming so during the workday. I’m sure CARF, the nonprofit accreditor of health and human services (http://www.carf.org/home/), the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) (https://www.cms.gov/), and the Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program (HFAP) ( http://www.hfap.org/)  would be very interested in looking into this. And, how about the local and National Press; just to name a few......

v  The aforementioned may be unethical at many levels, but this next situation has to border on criminal. I have been told that there are at least a handful of medical Doctors who are being paid a full-time salary at the VAMC, Northport, and are not required to show up for work. Indeed, they are enjoying the fruits of private practice, and earning a full paycheck from that source. Forget about Hospital Accreditation Agencies, I have a sneaking suspicion that the United States Judicial System might be very interested in taking long, hard look at these allegations.

As it is said in the business, “Watch this space!”

As the title mentions, this is just the tip of what may be a very large iceberg. It seems, the deeper you dig into the inner workings of our Veterans health care system, the more devastating unethical and criminal practices you find. There are the obvious short-term solutions to these problems, but what is needed is a complete overhaul and long-term solution to what is ailing our Veterans’ National health care system under the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. I have looked at this situation for the past five years. I have tried to come up with the root cause of the problems, and the long-term solution that will right this ship. After all, our Nation’s Veterans are depending on a health care system that works as advertised and promised; they deserve no less for the service they have provided us all.

What I think I have discovered is that the very structure of the Department of Veterans Affairs,  especially the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), is what leads to a certain bureaucratic culture that necessarily breeds incompetence, unethical behaviors, arrogance and indifference toward its clientele. I don’t want to make this a blanket condemnation of each and every VA employee, but I have to say, based on observation, these personnel characteristics seem to run deep throughout the entire system.

A primary premise in coming up with a cure is the undeniable fact that the vast majority of this Nation’s Veterans do not feel comfortable, or understood, when dealing with private sector medical and mental health care. So, instead of trashing the entire system, let’s try to reorganize this Department in such a way that will enable it to properly and efficiently serve our Veterans. We do not need to reinvent the wheel; all the necessary parts already exist. A proper reshuffling of the deck is something that can realistically be done, and done in a relatively short period of time. Once I have gotten a foothold in Congress with my Mandatory Military Separation Transition Program (MMSTP), I am going to focus full-time on putting together a blueprint for reorganizing the Department of Veterans Affairs. If you can change the structure, you can change the culture. Hey, somebody has to do it!

 My  UN-healthevet