When "tone deaf" is a complete understatement

**CitizenBBN** · 05-23-2016, 09:23 PM

VA Secretary on the long waits for vets to receive medical care:

"When you got to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? Or what's important? What's important is, what's your satisfaction with the experience?" McDonald said Monday during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters. "And what I would like to move to, eventually, is that kind of measure."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016...?intcmp=hplnws

Paul Ryan aptly pointed out that veterans have died waiting in those lines, so it's not exactly the same.

Beyond the problem of the VA having had serious questions about its operation really since its inception, how out of touch with your situation can you be to say something like that? Even if well intended you can't be head of an organization like this and not think through those comments before you make them.

PS The VA is the ultimate argument for us Lbertarians. there are a LOT of good people at the VA, people who care and appreciate the gravity of their mission. I've known several. Yet the inherent nature of government bureaucracy prevents things from running efficiently and consumers receiving a good product even when the people working for the producer largely want to deliver a good product. It's a classic example of how bureaucracy fails even when everyone's intentions are good, much less when like in most of government there are actual incentives to be corrupt and inefficient.

**suncat05** · 05-24-2016, 12:55 PM

My healthcare needs are pretty basic, so my VA trips are pretty much just maintenance trips. I take the few medications I need as prescribed, walk a few miles each week to keep the sick wolf away from the door, and try to eat well.
But I am not going to tell you otherwise, because I have seen it myself.........some of our disabled veterans are not getting everything they need from the entity that is charged with taking care of them. I have seen it and heard it too many times. Now, is it as bad where I'm at as has been reported in other VA locations? No, I don't think so, but then again too most of the reports I hear about the facilities that I go to have overall been pretty good.
Could it be improved? As with anything else, sure, it probably could. But for myself, and for my needs, I have little to complain about at this point.

**bigsky** · 05-24-2016, 02:43 PM

Health care and other Service to vets is horrible. I am in the veteran service providers' group that meets monthly. Non stop horror stories. The money isnt going to vets care.

**suncat05** · 05-24-2016, 03:13 PM

One of my best friends, who is a high ranking county agency administrtor here, and is married to a Marine Corps veteran of Afghanistan & Iraq, and who has regular dealings with the VA told me a couple of years after 'His Highness' took office that millions & millions of dollars are being siphoned from the VA annual budget to fund and support the illegal aliens and their people.
Because, you know, those people volunteered to go into combat and other dangerous situations. They knew what they were signing up for.
The SOB doesn't have any respect for our military or its veterans. To him, it's all about this "social justice" nonsense and that agenda that he wants to push on us, at the expense of the people who have honorably served and sacrificed much, for ALL OF US! He has no earthly idea about anything that has to do with "Duty, Honor, Country". He wouldn't know the first thing about any of that even if it bit him in his no-good Communist nose!
I despise that SOB! And if that offends you, go pound sand!