Gingrich: Shinseki Must Go

by JASmius

Behold, another preview of the sort of crap to come from ObamaCare:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called on the embattled chief of the Veterans Administration, Eric Shinseki, to resign for his "extraordinary failure" amid a growing VA hospital scandal sparked by lethal delays in veterans' medical care and charges of an elaborate cover-up.

Appearing on Newsmax TV's "America's Forum," Gingrich on Thursday sided with two of the country's top veterans' advocate groups, American Legion and Concerned Veterans of America, both of which have taken the unusual step of urging a sitting VA secretary to quit.

"It is impossible to look at the range of scandals and believe that he [Shinseki] could possibly fix it," Gingrich told host J.D. Hayworth.

What is the nature of the scandal in question?  Basically, the inevitable results of government-run health care: incompetence, neglect, mass death, and corrupt coverup:

Gingrich contended that Shinseki failed to inform Congress about the trouble unfolding on his watch.

"General Shinseki had a long career — an honorable career — in the Army but he doesn't seem to understand the difference between serving in the Army and being a cabinet officer," said Gingrich. "Cabinet officers have a genuine, immediate obligation to report to the Congress."

The VA is reeling from a CNN report that forty veterans died waiting for appointments at its Phoenix medical center. One whistleblower, a recently retired VA doctor, told CNN the hospital listed those patients and others on a sham appointments calendar created to hide the extent of the facility's backlog.

The real roster showed some 1,600 veterans having waited months to see a physician, according to CNN. [emphasis added]

Does Commissar Shinseki hate veterans?  I wouldn't think so, considering that he is one.  Is he an incompetent boob who has no control over the Cabinet Commissariat he's purportely supposed to be running?  Yes.  If he'd run his military commands anywhere close to the way he runs the VA, would he have ever made general, much less a presidential cabinet?  No.  Would anybody else have been able to run the VA sufficiently better that at least these forty veterans wouldn't have died, literally, of neglect?  Debatable.

And that's the point.  The VA is - <drumroll> - single-payer.  It's designed to not work.  It's designed to be absurdly expensive, poorly run, and completely unaccountable.  There is no way to "manage" it to make it functional, because it's not supposed to be functional.  Sure, you can fire Eric Shinseki, but the next Obamunist drone in line will produce exactly the same, or worse, results.  The problem isn't the asshole at the top; it's systemic.

Besides, you think Shinseki hasn't been paying attention at Obama Cabinet meetings?  He isn't going anywhere:

Shinseki has resisted calls to resign and vowed to get to the bottom of the VA's problems himself. "I serve at the pleasure of the president," he told the Wall Street Journal Tuesday.

Substitute "National Health Service" for "Veteran's Administration" and you've got a look at what's ahead and rapidly approaching if ObamaCare isn't somehow gotten rid of - only with a vastly higher body count.