Reply #18: Returning veterans encounter VA mental health meltdown

[robdogbucky]

Tales of 3 Marines underscore court decision blasting 'unchecked incompetence' at agency

"...The stories of Hunt, Northcutt and Towers are not unique. Similar allegations are leveled in a lawsuit against the Veterans Administration filed by two veterans groups that argue delays in the process of evaluating and treating returning veterans with mental health problems are systematic.

‘Unchecked incompetence'
On May 10, a federal appeals court judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, ordering the VA to drastically overhaul its mental health care system and accusing it of “unchecked incompetence.”

In a 140-page ruling, Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the agency was violating veterans’ constitutional rights by denying them guaranteed health care and benefits, citing the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment and its guarantee of freedom from unjustified governmental deprivation of property...

...The ruling accused both Congress and the Obama administration of failing veterans. “We would have preferred Congress or the president to have remedied the VA’s egregious problems without our intervention,” wrote Reinhardt. The scope of the problem also was highlighted in an April 2008 study by the RAND Corp.,which found that 18.5 percent of veterans deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 suffered from PTSD upon their return home. Fully one-third were seen at a VA facility for mental health within one year, it said..."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42995663/ns/health-health_care/