VA Pays $200 Million for Nearly 1,000 Veterans’ Wrongful Deaths

[Jroc]

Government run Heath care at it's best. Just think how bad it will be with 300 million people on Heath care run by the U.S. federal government

Since 9/11 almost 1,000 veterans have died due to negligence in the veterans health-care system. After lengthy legal battles the VA is finally making payments to their families.

An Iraq War veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and a history of drug dependency is found dead on the floor of his room at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in West Los Angeles after doctors give him a 30-day supply of the anti-anxiety medication alprazolam and a 15-day supply of methadone.


In Shreveport, La., a veteran overdoses on morphine while housed in a locked VA psychiatric unit. In a Minnesota VA psych ward, a veteran shoots himself in the head. In Portland, Ore., a delusional veteran jumps off the roof of the VA hospital.

These are some of the deaths that resulted in more than $200 million in wrongful death payments by the Department of Veterans Affairs in the decade after 9/11, according to VA data obtained by The Center for Investigative Reporting.

In that time, CIR found the agency made wrongful death payments to nearly 1,000 grieving families, ranging from decorated Iraq War veterans who shot or hanged themselves after being turned away from mental health treatment, to Vietnam veterans whose cancerous tumors were identified but allowed to grow, to missed diagnoses, botched surgeries and fatal neglect of elderly veterans.

“It wasn’t about the money, I just thought somebody should be held accountable,” said 86-year-old Doris Street, who received a $135,000 settlement in 2010 as compensation for the 2008 death of her brother, Carl Glaze. The median payment in VA wrongful death cases was $150,00

Edited to add source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...or-nearly-1-000-veterans-wrongful-deaths.html

 

[Nosmo King]

Government run Heath care at it's best. Just think how bad it will be with 300 million people on Heath care run by the U.S. federal government

Since 9/11 almost 1,000 veterans have died due to negligence in the veterans health-care system. After lengthy legal battles the VA is finally making payments to their families.

An Iraq War veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and a history of drug dependency is found dead on the floor of his room at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in West Los Angeles after doctors give him a 30-day supply of the anti-anxiety medication alprazolam and a 15-day supply of methadone.


In Shreveport, La., a veteran overdoses on morphine while housed in a locked VA psychiatric unit. In a Minnesota VA psych ward, a veteran shoots himself in the head. In Portland, Ore., a delusional veteran jumps off the roof of the VA hospital.

These are some of the deaths that resulted in more than $200 million in wrongful death payments by the Department of Veterans Affairs in the decade after 9/11, according to VA data obtained by The Center for Investigative Reporting.

In that time, CIR found the agency made wrongful death payments to nearly 1,000 grieving families, ranging from decorated Iraq War veterans who shot or hanged themselves after being turned away from mental health treatment, to Vietnam veterans whose cancerous tumors were identified but allowed to grow, to missed diagnoses, botched surgeries and fatal neglect of elderly veterans.

“It wasn’t about the money, I just thought somebody should be held accountable,” said 86-year-old Doris Street, who received a $135,000 settlement in 2010 as compensation for the 2008 death of her brother, Carl Glaze. The median payment in VA wrongful death cases was $150,00

Let's establish some parameters for your argument here. Are you in favor of a Veteran's health care system? Should someone be accountable for mistakes made in that system? Should those who suffer under those mistakes be compensated for their suffering? Should a set of standards be set? Should private health care providers also set standards and be held accountable? Should the "free market" private health care providers be let alone to run themselves without any oversight at all? Absent any regulations and standards, should patients be permitted to sue health care providers for damages done?

 

[Howey]

Government run Heath care at it's best. Just think how bad it will be with 300 million people on Heath care run by the U.S. federal government

Since 9/11 almost 1,000 veterans have died due to negligence in the veterans health-care system. After lengthy legal battles the VA is finally making payments to their families.

An Iraq War veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and a history of drug dependency is found dead on the floor of his room at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in West Los Angeles after doctors give him a 30-day supply of the anti-anxiety medication alprazolam and a 15-day supply of methadone.


In Shreveport, La., a veteran overdoses on morphine while housed in a locked VA psychiatric unit. In a Minnesota VA psych ward, a veteran shoots himself in the head. In Portland, Ore., a delusional veteran jumps off the roof of the VA hospital.

These are some of the deaths that resulted in more than $200 million in wrongful death payments by the Department of Veterans Affairs in the decade after 9/11, according to VA data obtained by The Center for Investigative Reporting.

In that time, CIR found the agency made wrongful death payments to nearly 1,000 grieving families, ranging from decorated Iraq War veterans who shot or hanged themselves after being turned away from mental health treatment, to Vietnam veterans whose cancerous tumors were identified but allowed to grow, to missed diagnoses, botched surgeries and fatal neglect of elderly veterans.

“It wasn’t about the money, I just thought somebody should be held accountable,” said 86-year-old Doris Street, who received a $135,000 settlement in 2010 as compensation for the 2008 death of her brother, Carl Glaze. The median payment in VA wrongful death cases was $150,00

Seeing as how the City of New York paid out $135 million year in similar claims in 2010 and civilian hospitals pay out over $300 million each year, not to mention the $280 million each year paid by private practice physicians, that number for a ten year period isn't such a horrible number.


You, and the Daily Beast, can scream all you want, but it's been consistently proven that the medical care provided by the VA is the best in the nation.

It's hard to top veterans' health care - Vital Signs - MarketWatch

Where can you find the highest quality health care in the U.S.? There isn't one single answer, but believe it or not, many studies and independent experts point to the Veterans Health Administration as among the best.

The VA has its own system-wide electronic health record, sophisticated quality-measurement tools, a coordinated approach to care, long relationships with patients and close ties to teaching hospitals, which supply a steady stream of medical residents.

Some other health systems also provide excellent patient care, and every place has it weaknesses, but the VA generally stands out on quality, said Elizabeth McGlynn, associate director of Rand Health, a division of the Rand Corp., in Santa Monica, Calif.

"You're much better off in the VA than in a lot of the rest of the U.S. health-care system," she said. "You've got a fighting chance there's going to be some organized, thoughtful, evidence-based response to dealing effectively with the health problem that somebody brings to them."

The combination of its information system and support tools, routine performance reporting and financial incentives for managers who hit quality targets gives it an edge, said McGlynn, who co-authored a comparative study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2004 that found the VA outperformed its community health-care counterparts by 20 percentage points in preventive care. It also performed significantly better on chronic disease care and in overall quality.

As the U.S. enters a new era with the passage of the health-reform law that takes full effect in 2014, experts say the VA's evolution offers lessons because many of the pilot projects and quality-improvement initiatives the new law calls for are similar to the VA's approach.

The Best Care Anywhere - Phillip Longman

First. This is the cause of your claim. I dare to note the precipitious rise in VA patients after the beginning of the Iraq/Afghan wars, started by George Bush.

Ten years ago, veterans hospitals were dangerous, dirty, and scandal-ridden. Today, they're producing the highest quality care in the country. Their turnaround points the way toward solving America's health-care crisis.

Now, for the truth:

Yet here's a curious fact that few conservatives or liberals know. Who do you think receives higher-quality health care. Medicare patients who are free to pick their own doctors and specialists? Or aging veterans stuck in those presumably filthy VA hospitals with their antiquated equipment, uncaring administrators, and incompetent staff? An answer came in 2003, when the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a study that compared veterans health facilities on 11 measures of quality with fee-for-service Medicare. On all 11 measures, the quality of care in veterans facilities proved to be "significantly better."

Here's another curious fact. The Annals of Internal Medicine recently published a study that compared veterans health facilities with commercial managed-care systems in their treatment of diabetes patients. In seven out of seven measures of quality, the VA provided better care.

It gets stranger. Pushed by large employers who are eager to know what they are buying when they purchase health care for their employees, an outfit called the National Committee for Quality Assurance today ranks health-care plans on 17 different performance measures. These include how well the plans manage high blood pressure or how precisely they adhere to standard protocols of evidence-based medicine such as prescribing beta blockers for patients recovering from a heart attack. Winning NCQA's seal of approval is the gold standard in the health-care industry. And who do you suppose this year's winner is: Johns Hopkins? Mayo Clinic? Massachusetts General? Nope. In every single category, the VHA system outperforms the highest rated non-VHA hospitals.

Not convinced? Consider what vets themselves think. Sure, it's not hard to find vets who complain about difficulties in establishing eligibility. Many are outraged that the Bush administration has decided to deny previously promised health-care benefits to veterans who don't have service-related illnesses or who can't meet a strict means test. Yet these grievances are about access to the system, not about the quality of care received by those who get in. Veterans groups tenaciously defend the VHA and applaud its turnaround. "The quality of care is outstanding," says Peter Gayton, deputy director for veterans affairs and rehabilitation at the American Legion. In the latest independent survey, 81 percent of VHA hospital patients express satisfaction with the care they receive, compared to 77 percent of Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Outside experts agree that the VHA has become an industry leader in its safety and quality measures. Dr. Donald M. Berwick, president of the Institute for Health Care Improvement and one of the nation's top health-care quality experts, praises the VHA's information technology as "spectacular." The venerable Institute of Medicine notes that the VHA's "integrated health information system, including its framework for using performance measures to improve quality, is considered one of the best in the nation."

 

[Howey]

Knowledge shut this one down, huh?

 

[JoeB131]

As unlikely as it is to have a rational conversation with JRoids,

96,000 Americans die EVERY YEAR due to mistakes made by hospitals and doctors.

Preventable Medical Errors ? The Sixth Biggest Killer in America

For Profit Health Care at its finest!

The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) seminal study of preventable medical errors estimated as many as 98,000 people die every year at a cost of $29 billion.1 If the Centers for Disease Control were to include preventable medical errors as a category, these conclusions would make it the sixth leading cause of death in America. 2

Further research has confirmed the extent of medical errors. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that there were 181,000 severe injuries attributable to medical negligence in 2003.3 The Institute for Healthcare Improvement estimates there are 15 million incidents of medical harm each year.4 HealthGrades, the nation’s leading healthcare rating organization, found that Medicare patients who experienced a patient-safety incident had a one-in-five chance of dying as a result.5

 

[Kondor3]

It's not your father's VA healthcare system... it's several orders of magnitude better.

 

[The Professor]

Knowledge shut this one down, huh?

All I know is that the treatment I get at the VA Hospital in Lake City, Florida, is top-notch. I wouldn't go anywhere else.

 

[JoeB131]

Knowledge shut this one down, huh?

You did an awesome job of bringing perspective to this discussion over irrational hate.

Here's the thing. The VA is like any system. It has its share of good and bad people and good and bad management. In the case of the current war, because field medics are so good at their jobs, they are dealing with a lot more people who are surviving their battlefield injuries.

 

[Howey]

Knowledge shut this one down, huh?

All I know is that the treatment I get at the VA Hospital in Lake City, Florida, is top-notch. I wouldn't go anywhere else.

Hey, I was there a couple of years ago!

 

[Howey]

Knowledge shut this one down, huh?

You did an awesome job of bringing perspective to this discussion over irrational hate.

Here's the thing. The VA is like any system. It has its share of good and bad people and good and bad management. In the case of the current war, because field medics are so good at their jobs, they are dealing with a lot more people who are surviving their battlefield injuries.

To be honest, I'm not particularly happy with the Orlando VA right now, but it's complicated.

I'll explain tomorrow.

 

[JoeB131]

Knowledge shut this one down, huh?

You did an awesome job of bringing perspective to this discussion over irrational hate.

Here's the thing. The VA is like any system. It has its share of good and bad people and good and bad management. In the case of the current war, because field medics are so good at their jobs, they are dealing with a lot more people who are surviving their battlefield injuries.

To be honest, I'm not particularly happy with the Orlando VA right now, but it's complicated.

I'll explain tomorrow.

I have never had to use a VA hospital because all of my civilian jobs since leaving the Service in 1992 have provided something that can be called "Health Insurance". I'm not entirely sure what my access is because even though my service was 5 years as a reservist and 6 years active, I was never shot at by a testy foriegner.

Some of the hospitals do a great job, some do a poor job.

J'Roid, though was trying to use some bad cases to slander the people who work there.

 

[guno]

Government run Heath care at it's best. Just think how bad it will be with 300 million people on Heath care run by the U.S. federal government

Since 9/11 almost 1,000 veterans have died due to negligence in the veterans health-care system. After lengthy legal battles the VA is finally making payments to their families.

An Iraq War veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and a history of drug dependency is found dead on the floor of his room at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in West Los Angeles after doctors give him a 30-day supply of the anti-anxiety medication alprazolam and a 15-day supply of methadone.


In Shreveport, La., a veteran overdoses on morphine while housed in a locked VA psychiatric unit. In a Minnesota VA psych ward, a veteran shoots himself in the head. In Portland, Ore., a delusional veteran jumps off the roof of the VA hospital.

These are some of the deaths that resulted in more than $200 million in wrongful death payments by the Department of Veterans Affairs in the decade after 9/11, according to VA data obtained by The Center for Investigative Reporting.

In that time, CIR found the agency made wrongful death payments to nearly 1,000 grieving families, ranging from decorated Iraq War veterans who shot or hanged themselves after being turned away from mental health treatment, to Vietnam veterans whose cancerous tumors were identified but allowed to grow, to missed diagnoses, botched surgeries and fatal neglect of elderly veterans.

“It wasn’t about the money, I just thought somebody should be held accountable,” said 86-year-old Doris Street, who received a $135,000 settlement in 2010 as compensation for the 2008 death of her brother, Carl Glaze. The median payment in VA wrongful death cases was $150,00

Edited to add source: VA Pays $200 Million for Nearly 1,000 Veterans? Wrongful Deaths - The Daily Beast

Socialized Medicine in Israel

Israel Matzav: Israel's socialized medicine

Romney praises health care in Israel, where research says ?strong government influence? has driven down costs

Jroc its not good barking like a rightwing goyim on health care

 

[JoeB131]

Shhhh... you can't mention to J'Roids that Israel has socialized Medicine that America is paying for.

It would break his little heart.

 

[Jroc]

Government run Heath care at it's best. Just think how bad it will be with 300 million people on Heath care run by the U.S. federal government

Since 9/11 almost 1,000 veterans have died due to negligence in the veterans health-care system. After lengthy legal battles the VA is finally making payments to their families.

An Iraq War veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and a history of drug dependency is found dead on the floor of his room at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in West Los Angeles after doctors give him a 30-day supply of the anti-anxiety medication alprazolam and a 15-day supply of methadone.


In Shreveport, La., a veteran overdoses on morphine while housed in a locked VA psychiatric unit. In a Minnesota VA psych ward, a veteran shoots himself in the head. In Portland, Ore., a delusional veteran jumps off the roof of the VA hospital.

These are some of the deaths that resulted in more than $200 million in wrongful death payments by the Department of Veterans Affairs in the decade after 9/11, according to VA data obtained by The Center for Investigative Reporting.

In that time, CIR found the agency made wrongful death payments to nearly 1,000 grieving families, ranging from decorated Iraq War veterans who shot or hanged themselves after being turned away from mental health treatment, to Vietnam veterans whose cancerous tumors were identified but allowed to grow, to missed diagnoses, botched surgeries and fatal neglect of elderly veterans.

“It wasn’t about the money, I just thought somebody should be held accountable,” said 86-year-old Doris Street, who received a $135,000 settlement in 2010 as compensation for the 2008 death of her brother, Carl Glaze. The median payment in VA wrongful death cases was $150,00

Edited to add source: VA Pays $200 Million for Nearly 1,000 Veterans? Wrongful Deaths - The Daily Beast

Socialized Medicine in Israel

Israel Matzav: Israel's socialized medicine

Romney praises health care in Israel, where research says ?strong government influence? has driven down costs

Jroc its not good barking like a rightwing goyim on health care

This isn't Israel genus. Here's a hint, the city of New York as more people than Israel so your comparison is bullshit, and I choose to not have federal government panel of bureaucrats deciding what kind of treatment I'm allowed to have.... understand?

 

[Jroc]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YTRNer68Ho"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YTRNer68Ho[/ame]

 

[birddog]

I have used the VA system for many years as part of my care, with good results.

That said, there are needed improvements in surgical care and other areas.

Iatrogenesis (physician induced sickness and deaths) are common everywhere, not just the VA. By it's nature, the practice if medicine is dangerous, more so if shoddily performed.

 

[Jroc]

I have used the VA system for many years as part of my care, with good results.

That said, there are needed improvements in surgical care and other areas.

Iatrogenesis (physician induced sickness and deaths) are common everywhere, not just the VA. By it's nature, the practice if medicine is dangerous, more so if shoddily performed.

That's cool, but the VA serves how many people? liberals want complete government run healthcare. Once insurance companies go out of business because of Obamacare this is all we'll have left. Long waits and denied coverage, with government bureaucrats deciding what treatments we are allowed to have. of course if you have connections in the federal government you'll have no problem

 

[Kondor3]

The VA Healthcare System has come a long way in the past couple of decades...

It had to make a come-back from a fairly low place on the public-approval scale...

I remember watching a movie in the early 1990s...

Which played heavily on the stereotyping and public perceptions of the time...

But I've seen the VA Healthcare System close-up in the past 2-3 years and m convinced that the basis for any such stereotyping is pretty much behind them now...

You can still see some vestigial remnants of its old under-performing self, scattered-about here and there, but...

If their rock-bottom was a "3" on a 1-10 scale, say, oh, 20-25 years ago, then...

As a matter of pure personal opinion, I'd say that they're at a solid 7 - pushing an 8 - nowadays...

And they seem highly motivated and driven nowadays, to press ahead with substantial and systemic changes, and have put a lot of Quality Control and Customer Satisfaction measures into place, which appear to have helped with increasing the quality of care...