A VA whistleblower in Atlanta says top leaders in the agency were so concerned about containing a scandal of thousands of veterans who died while waiting to getting enrolled for care that they botched a project to clear up a health care application backlog.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday published a story detailing the failures of the national Health Eligibility Center in DeKalb County that oversees health care enrollment for veterans across the country. The AJC examined audio recordings of internal VA meetings where officials discuss concerns about enrolling dead veterans whose applications are in the pending backlog. Here's a link to one of those recordings.
Officials rushed ahead with a plan to close out applications in the backlog, including as many as 300,000 veterans who may have died before ever getting enrolled, instead of working vigorously to enroll as many veterans as possible, according to documents and whistleblower interviews.
"They did not want to validate the findings of the inspector general report that veterans died before receiving their health care benefits," said Scott Davis, a whistleblower who testified before Congress in 2014 about problems the AJC also reported that year.
The chief data analyst for the enrollment center wrote a scathing email in February outlining how leaders overseeing the project were acting in their own interest at the expense of veterans. He accused VA leaders of rushing to close out applications and said the health care application backlog was the result of years of mismanagement at the center in Atlanta.
“There is no plausible argument for how this benefits Veterans,” wrote senior analyst Dane Cornelius. “Leaders should not make decisions that are only in their self-interest.”
The VA executive overseeing the clean-up project, Matt Eitutis, thanked Cornelius for his concern for veterans, but he told the AJC he does not agree with his conclusions.
“We don’t believe we’ve made any errors,” he said. Eitutis said the VA leveraged the entire VA health care system to enroll as many veterans as possible. An inspector general review is underway to sort through the allegations.
The AJC story Sunday also examined audio recordings of internal VA meetings where officials discuss concerns about enrolling dead veterans whose applications are in the pending backlog. Here's a link to one of those recordings.
Go to myAJC.com to read full story and see why Sen. Johnny Isakson has called for VA to fix the enrollment system managed by the center in Atlanta.
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