The Veterans Affairs Scandal

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Everyone knows someone who has been touched by the recent Veterans Affairs Scandal. Someone in your family or a friend may have served our country only to come home and be delayed medical attention when they arrive at their local VA. This has personally touched my family; my spouse is a Marine Veteran. He needed to see a doctor and I asked him to make an appointment with the VA in Gainesville, since most of the cost would be covered; he laughed at me. He proceeded to tell me that the last time he went to the VA, he arrived prior to seven am and waited almost eight hours to see the doctor and the doctor walked in, told him he thinks he has this condition, wrote him a prescription and walked out within five minutes. My spouse looks at the VA not as a hospital but as a Band-Aid clinic. This experience is not uncommon at most VA’s given the recent accusations that the VA has a “secret wait list”. The news broke about the secret wait list in mid-April of this year, when Dr. Samuel Foote retired from the Phoenix VA after 24 years of service. President Obama said he was “madder than hell” and outraged about the allegations. Jon Stewart on Comedy Central poked fun at Obamas mad as hell face and said “it looks a lot like your, were out of orange juice face”. While Republican Kevin McCarthy of California, said “If the President truly did not know about the scandals and mistakes, we should doubt his ability to properly manage the leviathan government that he helped create.” I found it ironic that he compared our government to a leviathan which historically is a twisted and coiled sea monster. Obama assures us that if the allegations were true he would be taking swift action and punish those found guilty of wrong doing and said ... ... middle of paper ... ...big push that the Obama Administration needs to get up and follow through with their promise to build that new and improved VA so more veterans will be properly taken care of in a timely fashion. Veterans like my spouse do not trust the VA and look to private facilities for care and pay out of pocket expenses. Many people cannot afford to do this and rely on the VA for their care. I hope this scandal opens the eyes of many leaders in the VA system, law makes and our President that there needs to be drastic changes. If nothing is done I can only fear the worst will happen not to our veterans but to country as a whole. The VA and our government owe it to our veterans to take care of them and provide the upmost best care that our country has to offer to them. After all it is to them that we owe our freedom to, not our President nor other leaders in Washington.

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