I’m no expert, nor do I have any personal experience on the subject of veterans’ issues, but I continue to take a look at what my misrep Cathy McMorris Rodgers is doing during her bid for a 7th term in Congress. Once again this year veterans issues are big.
Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ Congressional Facebook page has this post from August 20th regarding her draft legislation “To amend title 38, United States Code, to establish the Veterans Accountable Care Organization and to provide veterans access to private health insurance plans, and for other purposes. “ It’s called the Caring for Our Heroes in the 21st Century Act.
One of the top questions I was asked this week during my town halls and meetings was: what are you doing to fix the VA? It's clear to me the VA has lost sight of its mission to put the veteran first. That’s why I released draft legislation called the Caring for Our Heroes in the 21st Century Act. Thank you to Concerned Veterans for America for your support of my draft legislation that increases veterans’ access to health care by giving them the flexibility to go outside of the VA to get the healthcare they need and deserve.
(all emphasis is added)
(Of course, she has been part of leading the charge to kill Obamacare and voting against it over 60 times. Also, well publicized, was her repeating the bogus claims of Bette from Spokane when she gave the response to the SOTU speech and ignoring all the comments supporting the healthcare law that flooded her Facebook page.)
Following that link to the Concerned Veterans for America Facebook page, I did some Googling and found this article in Stars and Stripes from 2014. Author Tom Philpott writes:
But in my 37 years covering veterans’ issues, I have never seen veteran issues used more cynically or politicized more thoroughly than during the past several years. At times the intent seems to be to shake trust in government generally rather than to address veterans' needs.
In the thick of this is Concerned Veterans for America, posing as a vet advocacy group and being rewarded for it. CVA press releases usually are partisan attacks. Its spokesman, Pete Hegseth, an Iraq war vet and Republican who ran for a U.S. Senate in 2012, is quoted often by major news outlets without mention of press reports associating CVA with the Koch brothers, libertarian billionaires who create public interest groups to oppose big government. That’s fine. That’s protected speech. A CVA spokesman told me last year it won't reveal donor information.
What should upset vets is the use of select facts about VA and its programs to reinforce fears rather than give reliable information. Last week a CVA press release hit a new low in purporting to document “lies” Shinseki told in congressional testimony, dropping any veil of respect for a decorated, combat-disabled soldier with a long and stellar career.
[...]
Traditional vet groups are alarmed by the rising profile CVA has on cable news programs and in newspapers where informed opinions on chronic claim backlogs and care delays should rule. Instead, there’s heated rhetoric that stirs dissent and attempts to turns the public against a department the CVA routinely portrays always as too costly and too ineffective
Philpott quotes Joseph Violante, the national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans recalling an invitation to react to the spokesman for CVA, Pete Hegseth on a talk radio show in Wisconsin. “He was upset to hear Hegseth contend VA budgets continue to climb despite “four million fewer veterans” than a decade ago.”
“I said, ‘Yea, there are probably four million fewer. But they are not all in VA health care’ ” Violante said. “If you look at health care numbers on unique patients, it hasn’t changed much the past decade [at almost six million being treated]. Enrollment has gone up to about nine million.
“But to throw stuff out like that shows they don’t understand what the hell they are talking about. They mix the claims process with the healthcare process and the backlog and wait lists like they are one thing. Every time I see [CVA on TV or in print] the hair on the back of my neck just stands up.
Long-time advocates like Violante worry that CVA’s arguments, over time, will give politicians cover to cut VA funding severely or even to dismantle much of the VA health care system...The theme that VA is too costly and ineffective is critical to a message of doubt in government programs. If the vast VA bureaucracy can’t satisfy your medical needs, isn’t it best to get care from the private sector?
And Philpott continues
DAV, American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars want the VA preserved for its expertise and resources in caring for vets. They fear bills to supplement the VA care by sending vets into the private sector for care nearer to home is a first step toward watering down VA quality of care.
McMorris Rodgers has a newly earned reputation for deleting comments on Facebook, but she hasn’t caught these two yet that are responses to one of her supporters/defenders:
“ Do you believe the VA is overfunded? Or that Cathy does not get campaign contributions from medical PACs? Both of those things are easy to prove.”... “Here's a website where you can see for yourself who your little farmgirl gets $$$ from maplight.org
Interest |
Contributions |
Health Professionals |
$185,190 |
Securities & Investment |
$133,500 |
Real Estate |
$125,520 |
Insurance |
$121,367 |
Oil & Gas |
$94,500 |
Telecom Services |
$93,150 |
Forestry & Forest Products |
$89,285 |
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products |
$71,600 |
Agricultural Services/Products |
$68,939 |
Food & Beverage |
$53,320 |
Spokane is the largest city in eastern Washington and patients come for medical treatment from all over the northwest. And here’s how it is in Spokane regarding our hospitals and clinics from this Spokesman Review 2013 article
Today, Spokane health care is dominated by two large and aggressive hospital systems. Providence Health & Services and Community Health Systems Inc. have snapped up scores of clinics and put 60 percent of the region’s doctors – about 700 – on their Spokane payrolls. This has allowed them to pin down patient referrals and profits in what amounts to a modern-day gold rush.
Last year, three of Spokane’s four hospitals captured combined profits of $71 million, led by Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center’s $50 million.
Deaconess Hospital, a major piece of Providence competitor CHS’ Spokane-based Rockwood Health System, recorded a $14.7 million loss as it adjusts to changes including the Providence buyout of Spokane Cardiology, which had been a lucrative partner of Deaconess for many years.
Company executives, however, say those operating losses don’t reflect the true state of Deaconess….a widely accepted accounting method that stock analysts and company financial officers use lists Deaconess with a $15 million profit.
And, yes, Spokane benefits greatly from health care dollars, however “dollars also are sent upstream to out-of-town corporate offices.”
At Providence, for example, 20 executives based in Renton, Wash., were paid more than a million dollars apiece in 2011. Of those, four senior vice presidents collected more than $3 million a year in salary and other compensation. Providence chief executive Dr. John Koster led all of them with $6.4 million. None of those million-dollar salaries paid in 2011 went to Providence’s leaders in Spokane.
CHS, based in Tennessee, is the largest publicly traded hospital company in the United States. Its chief executive, Wayne Smith, received pay totaling about $21 million in 2011. Several other executives were paid millions, according to financial filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
So all these noble stuff about working to help our “heroes” (and btw there is a cute as heck video from our friends at CVA) rings a bit hollow. I would add that a common critique of McMorris Rodgers is her very visible presence in WA-05 right around election time for lots of photo-ops , as well as very shiny election time mailers going out extolling her warm, “humbled” and appreciative feelings toward the people of Eastern Washington at voters’ expense.
I wrote this diary ten years ago when I knew next to nothing about her really and I said-
I want to send out a warning: McMorris is flying under the national radar [...]
McMorris is considered a rising star by the Republican leadership. Assistant whip first to DeLay, now to Boehner, and tapped to head up the hearings on changing NEPA, she hasn't been groomed so much as funneled into this position.
Young, attractive (more Republican cynicism), she is a Stepford Wife of the Party, a facade, a fake, and a front (willingly ?, innocently ?, naively ?, stupidly ?)...
And now here we are and we do have a real chance to defeat her. Defeating McMorris Rodgers is a big task but it can be done. Speaker Tom Foley was targeted back in ‘94 by a relatively unknown George Nethercutt with the help of Lee Atwater and big dollars from the RNC. It’s time to stop ignoring this congressional seat and her #4 position in “leadership”.
McMorris Rodgers’ numbers in this year’s primary were at all time low.
We have an outstanding candidate -Joe Pakootas
And NO- McMorris Rodgers does not have “SOLUTIONS”
Joe Pakootas is inspiring people!
Here’s Joe talking about the V.A
And from Joe's Veterans Issues page-
Our veterans are among the most precious asset that this country has. They have fought to defend our freedom for generations, and deserve nothing but admiration from this country. In spite of its critiques, the VA still remains the best option for many of our veterans to receive health care. The VA specializes in health care issues unique to many veterans like post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries, and amputation. With the privatization of healthcare comes profit-centered care and a lack of accountability. Joe does not support the Veteran’s Choice program or any other attempt to privatize veteran’s healthcare and will instead support full funding for the VA. It has been proven that the VA is the best caregiver for veterans.
And I can attest to the real interest in this race in WA-05. I’ve had over 1000 Facebook shares in a few days on one of the diaries I wrote about Joe linked to above. And well over 900 on this one, both with very little attention from folks here at DKos. This campaign for Joe Pakootas for Congress is one to pay attention to and support! And btw, no, I am not working for the campaign.
If you can please VOLUNTEER -there are all kinds of ways to help!
If you can please DONATE!