'Dear Lord': The VA — AOC's model health care system — has a lot more blood on its hands

Sarah D | 1:10 PM on August 30, 2019

The Washington Post is out today with a terrifying — and infuriating — new exposé by Lisa Rein on the VA:

How Veterans Affairs failed to stop a pathologist who misdiagnosed 3,000 cases https://t.co/F7pTFJefZL

— Charles Ornstein (@charlesornstein) August 30, 2019

This, from @Reinlwapo, is an absolutely horrific read – a VA pathologist who made 3,000 errors or misdiagnoses and whose botched diagnoses led to the deaths of at least 15 of our veterans https://t.co/8YBu526TZO

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) August 30, 2019

Absolutely chilling.

Dear Lord. https://t.co/Y0rtXazMPP

— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) August 30, 2019

That is so awful I don’t know how he was able to get away with this !!!!!

— don huber (@Billsfan9Don) August 30, 2019

More from the Washington Post:

VA officials are calling what unfolded in Specialty Building 21 at the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks in Fayetteville an isolated case. But the agency’s sprawling network of 167 hospitals and 1,000 clinics has long struggled to police problem doctors, audits and internal investigations show.

Inspector General Michael Missal’s office in recent years has identified multiple VA physicians who continued to practice even after they were found to have compromised patient care. A report this year by the Government Accountability Office found weak systems for ensuring that problems are quickly addressed when a physician’s quality of care to veterans is compromised. On Wednesday, Missal said his staff is investigating as many as 11 suspicious deaths of veterans at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, W.Va.

The scope of the damage [Robert Morris] Levy allegedly caused in Arkansas has also added to scrutiny around VA’s oversight.

“It’s a manifestation of bureaucracy at its worst,” said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), whose district in northwest Arkansas includes the hospital. “In any other setting, an individual entrusted with the care of patients found to be impaired like this would have been terminated right away.”

He said VA lacked “checks and balances” that should have uncovered Levy’s mistakes long ago.

Remember this past April, when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for “VA for all,” saying of the VA “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? Well, it seems pretty clear that the VA is beyond broken. We shudder to imagine what would happen if all Americans were subjected to what Levy’s victims experienced.