[June 27, 2014] The newly published American Legion Magazine1 does a good job of addressing the nation-wide VA scandal involving veteran health care. Quoting and agreeing with a Florida Congressman, the bigger problem is accountability, “a culture shift that needs to be made.”2 While they are right, it is not exactly clear what they really mean by the comment.
I’ve stated several times that the problem is that the government worker system is one that has a culture of failed management. In the VA employee system, the workers can do pretty much whatever they want and there is little guidance provided to them. Yes, there does need to be accountability but that is not simply at the senior leader level. There should also be an overhaul of the employee system where employees are also held accountable. Yet, as of today, this is not being done.
“Are there some federal workers who do bone-headed things? Absolutely. And …we got to crack down and got to reform it.” – Barack Obama3
It is good news that the President sees that a large part of the problem is that “federal workers” do things they should not be doing. He is looking at reform and that is exactly what it will take. The real question is whether he will give the authority to the new VA chief and whether anyone will have the moral courage to take action.
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[1] American Legion Magazine: http://www.legion.org/magazine
[2] Magazine Article link: http://www.legion.org/magazine/222857/va%E2%80%99s-series-unfortunate-events
[3] The President at a town hall meeting in Minneapolis yesterday defending the federal government. He went on to say “In the VA health care system, once people get in, the quality of care, the satisfaction rates for customers are actually better than in private sector health care. So we can’t generalize like this.”