Gov't Run, Single Payer Plan in U.S: Oakland-Based VA Benefit Office Struggles To Process Backlog of 12K Claims

Bureaucracy is a heartless, cold, calculating machine that is incapable of caring about anything other than its own survival.  The larger the bureaucracy the worse things get.  And we have pushed our veterans into this horrific system.  It is enraging and heartbreaking.  

This is from Mark Emmons writing at the San Jose Mercury News, hat tip to Ryan Kennedy.  The entire story is worth your time to read.

Whenever Vietnam veteran Don Cooper asked about his request for an in-home aide, the Oakland VA regional benefit office told him the same thing: A decision would take 14 months. 

"Well, I'm going to be dead in 14 months," said Cooper, 72, of Livermore, who has stage 4 colon cancer. "But I couldn't get anybody to listen to me." ... 

[T]he latest weekly VA report shows that the center still has 12,103 claims pending longer than 125 days and 20,515 overall -- taking an average of 292 days to complete.