Article 64. Bureaucratic “Stone Walling”, Whistle Blowers and a Fix for the problem

Over the years of the Obama Administration Representative Jeff Miller from Florida has written numerous letters to the President some outlining complaints from Veterans relating to the lack of VA healthcare.  The letters no doubt ended up in the hands of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki.  Mr. Shinseki may have contacted the offending Heads of the VA Medical Facilities.  Obviously  nothing was done ending in classic “stone walling” of government Bureaucratic leaders.   Mr. Shinseki Could have initiated an investigation by the VA’s own Office of Inspector General OIG which could have yielded the similar results to the current findings a year earlier but didn’t.  But the OIG had already investigated the problem in 2013 and found nothing, at the request of Dr. Sam Foote the current 2014 VA Scandal Whistle Blower.

Dr. Sam Foote the physician who revealed that patients had died while awaiting appointments at the Phoenix VA Health Care System described how he became a whistleblower.

After his original 2013 complaint (to the VA OIG)was apparently disregarded, Dr. Sam Foote wrote a follow-up letter in February 2014 to the VA Office of the Inspector General demanding that his revelations be acted upon, The Arizona Republic reported.

"Patients are still dying. How can that be three months after I first notified you of the problem?" Foote wrote.

The IG's office had in fact begun looking into his allegations in December 2013 but Foote didn't see the situation improving.

In February 2014, Foote wrote a second time to the inspector general, sending copies to Arizona Sen. John McCain, Arizona Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, and U.S. Attorney John Leonardo.

Only McCain's office got back to him, though Foote did not think it was the kind of response that would bring results. Only when he made contact with Eric Hannel, staff director for a subcommittee of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, did he feel his complaint would be adequately addressed. That's when congressional investigators reporting to Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., launched their inquiry.

From:  VA Physician Describes How He Became a Whistleblower
By Elliot Jager From NewsMax  Monday, 02 Jun 2014 08:42 AM


The Bureaucratic “Stone Walling” of the VA permeates the entire organization including the vary part of the organization tasked for investigating wrongdoing the VA’s Office of Inspector General. The OIG responding to the 2013 letter from Dr. Sam Foote, failed to find the appointment scheduling problems of Veterans Dieing before they could get an appointment with the Phoenix VA Medical Facility.

The Fix For the VA Management Problem
There is little chance that the sweeping reforms needed to fix the VA will be initiated from within the VA itself because of its systemic management problems.  Therefore I recommend that sweeping VA reforms be implemented by a Congressionally Chartered Veterans Affairs Reform Committee.  This Committee should have the power to bring in outside Consultants to implement the needed reforms. These major reforms to the VA will not be implemented unless the Veterans Affairs Committees take the lead.  See my Article 56. Congressional Veterans Affairs to Tap the GAO to Fix the VA.

The Inspector General Problem
This highlights my observation that all Inspector general offices are not independent but are a part of the Government Bureaucracy to which they are attached and participate in Bureaucratic “Stone Walling”. 

Over the years US Government Bureaucracies have developed means for protecting themselves while appearing to be doing the right thing to the public. Currently all major Departments of the Federal Government have their own Inspector General offices to conduct audits and make reports and recommendations to their specific Department Heads. There are 73 federal offices of inspectors general, a significant increase since the statutory creation of the initial 12 offices by the Inspector General Act of 1978. The offices employ special agents (criminal investigators, often armed) and auditors. In addition, federal offices of inspectors general employ forensic auditors, or "audigators," evaluators, inspectors, administrative investigators, and a variety of other specialists. Their activities include the detection and prevention of fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement of the government programs and operations within their parent organizations. But these are “Self Investigating Organizations” the primary reason that investigations leading to budget cuts seldom occur. See my Article 52.  Establishment of a Government Wide United States Inspector Generals Office.

A problem arises from conflict of interest between a Department's Inspector Generals office and the Department head it reports to, where waste of government funds are concerned and especially where reduced budgets are the result of the Inspector General's recommendations. There appears to be no single organization in the US Federal Government with a free hand for fixing government waste problems leading to reduced budgets and smaller government.

Therefore I am making the following recommendation for the establishment of a United States Inspectors General Office with all Departmental Inspectors Generals reporting directly to and funded by this office and not to their current Department offices.    I further recommend that the Government Accountability Office  (GAO) be the Home for this organization.  The  US Inspector General would report directly to the Comptroller General of the GAO.  All Department Inspector Generals offices will remain in their current locations within each US Government Department.

The Logic for the US Inspector General reporting directly to the Comptroller General of the GAO is found through the special independent relationship of the GAO to Congress and with oversight of the GAO.  This extends Congressional oversight over the Proposed US Inspector Generals Office.  The enhanced powers of the GAO provides for a single organization with the express powers for finding and eliminating Government wrongdoing and Government Waste. A much needed investigative tool for Congress.

The need for Congress to have investigative powers should be obvious.  For example, consider the case of the NSA, listening to millions of American citizen phone calls and claiming falsely in US Senate hearings that they were not doing this.  With Congressional investigative powers through the GAO’s proposed  US Office of Inspector General Congress could have claims made by Whistle Blowers investigated anonymously.  This could have avoided the massive disclosure of US secrets by Edward Snowden. 

A major benefit to the American Taxpayer
The GAO is the most likely independent Agency for  eliminating the waste in government.  Because since 2010 the GAO has been tasked with identifying duplicated government services such as the 345 page document in March 2013 identifying significant duplicated services in our government.  The number of duplicated services makes it impossible for Congress to enact enough laws to fix only but a few of the problems.  Therefore the GAO with my recommendation for a US Office of Inspector General within the GAO must be empowered by Congress to fix waste problems not just identify the waste.  See my Article 50. The Wounded Warrior Government Waste Elimination Project  and Article 51. Legislation for Elimination of Government Waste Leading to Major Reform of the Federal Government