This past week brought the story of U.S. military veterans dying while waiting for care at a Phoenix, Arizona VA healthcare facility and the falsifying of records there to hide the delays veterans suffered waiting for needed healthcare.
what eye thynk: Every American should be outraged by the treatment our military veterans are getting, (or not getting) at our VA healthcare facilities. These facilities are over-crowded and under-funded. It is a disgrace.
But while Republicans see this as another issue with which to cudgel the President, may I remind them of this report from February 27 of this year:
"(Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republicans blocked legislation on Thursday that would have expanded federal healthcare and education programs for veterans, saying the $24 billion bill would bust the budget."This bill would have funded the opening of 27 additional veterans' healthcare facilities to help with overcrowding and delays currently being experienced by our veterans--overcrowding that is being caused in large part by the huge influx of veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Wars that, I'm sure I need not remind you, were embraced with great zeal, virtually no financial planning and not a lot of truth by the Republican Party and their war-mongering White House resident.)
Despite the fact that the bill had passed to the vote-yea-or-nay stage by a 99-0 count, when the hour came to actually vote yea-or-nay, Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), insisted that amendments regarding additional sanctions on Iran be added to the bill. At the time, we were in touchy negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program and the President said that additional sanctions could deep six those negotiations.
As Senator Bernard Sanders (I-Vermont), Chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee said at the time, "The issue of Iran sanctions...has nothing to do with the needs of veterans." But asking for a moratorium on sanctions was apparently akin to waving a red cape in front of a bull. Republicans immediately saw it as a "must have" option and damn the consequences.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) refused to allow the amendment to be added.
Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) then raised budget concerns which forced another procedural vote to waive budget rules: "This bill would spend more than we agreed to spend. The ink is hardly dry and here we have another bill to raise that spending again." The new procedural vote failed by a vote of 56-41, with only 4 Republicans voting in favor. With that procedural vote failure, the veterans' healthcare bill could not be presented to the full Senate for a vote: it was effectively killed by another Republican filibuster.
Now, Republicans are outraged. And while they have every right to join the rest of us in expressing that outrage, they also must accept a large part of the responsibility. Refusing to vote additional funds for an over-taxed veterans' healthcare system puts you squarely in the high-beam headlights of, at the very least, shared blame.
So, while we're thanking of our veterans on this Memorial Day weekend, Republicans might take the time to look at themselves and, instead of standing on their red soapbox and pointing fingers at the President sitting on his blue White House seat, think about how they need to join with Democrats and fix this disgraceful problem. If it adds a little to the deficit, we should be willing to live with that. After all, some veterans are living with a lot worse.
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