My wife and myself are both vets who use our local VA Hospital...

[MrScorpio]

We both get care at the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center, in Detroit, Michigan. http://www.detroit.va.gov A really excellent facility, located in the heart of city's vast Medical Center area.

I have nothing but praise for both the hospital's staff of medical professionals and the level of care that we have received from them.

Now, I see that someone noticed that all of the problems with VA Hospitals were located in Red and Purple states.

Somehow, I'm not surprised.

If vets can get great care in a city like Detroit, with all of the problems the we have here in this deeply troubled Blue area… Then what does that has to say about the real nature of this VA care crisis in the first place?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024975453

[Skink]

1. Shutting the Government down doesn't help either

[hobbit709]

2. I live in a blue island in a sea of red and I get excellent care at my VA facility.

[fasttense]

3. I'm in the red state of TN

And my VA doctor said I needed to take vitamin D. So I bought a 90 day supply for $4.00. Then in the mail, I get a 90 day supply of vitamin D from the VA. It had a bill attached for $24. They wouldn't even take them back because they were mailed.

So I make sure I never ever in a million years ever get vitamins from the VA. It's a ripoff.

[Sunlei]

4. Aparently the Vet hospitals in some states kept a second set of apointment books & collected

their Federal funding based totally on fraud.

Whatever Administration and State management were behind that fraud to our Vets healthcare need to be put in jail.

[former9thward]

5. There is no state management at the VA.

It is a federal agency.

[former9thward]

6. What, besides an opportunity to region bash, is the point of your OP?

The VA is a federal agency with federal management and federal employees. States and cities have nothing to do with it. The Phoenix VA has been the focus of various allegations and it is in a blue city in a red state. Where you are at, Michigan, certainly qualifies as purple since Republicans control state government. So what exactly is the point?

[MrScorpio]

7. The point is that the entire system shouldn't be bashed...

And perhaps there is a regional component to the problem which that may or may not have something to do with the politics of various areas, but it would also indicate that the story isn't as cut and dried as depicted in the media.

The Metro Detroit area is actually another Blue oasis located in a vast of desert of Michigan Purpleness, BTW

[former9thward]

8. I agree the entire VA should not be attacked.

The situation in Phoenix seems to have arisen over a management bonus system where if patients were seen in a timely manner the management would get some sort of bonus. So to make that happen on paper there were 'secret patient lists' created. How prevalent that practice was nationwide no one knows at this point.