Update: Hearing Highlights Vet Tracking Woes (too expensive to implement)

[brooklynite]

The Department of Veterans Affairs scrapped an early effort to track returning war casualties because it was too expensive to implement, a senior official confirmed today before a congressional panel.

ABC News yesterday reported a former VA employee said the department did not implement a 2004 plan that would have ensured injured veterans received timely care and benefits. As a result, some wounded vets have suffered as they waited for disability payments and proper care.

News of the program's shelving prompted outrage from some quarters. "I am not convinced the Veterans Affairs Department is doing its part," said Rep. Harry E. Mitchell, D-Ariz., chairman of the panel, in prepared remarks. Mitchell said he was "deeply troubled" by the report.

Dr. Michael J. Kussman, the VA's acting undersecretary for health, said the program, known as the Contingency Tracking System (CTS), was designed only to handle information related to veterans' benefits, not their health care, and would have been too expensive to adapt. "It could not meet needs, or even all of needs, without significant additional development costs," Kussman said without citing specific figures.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/03/update_hearing_.html

[fed-up]

1. yesterday's abcblog-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x367648
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/03/under_va_chief_.html


Under VA Chief, Effort to Aid Wounded Vets Stalled, Ex-Employee Charges

A proposal to keep seriously wounded vets from falling through he cracks of the bureaucracy was shelved in 2005 when Jim Nicholson took over as the secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department, according to the former VA employee who was responsible for tracking war casualties.

The program, called the Contingency Tracking System, had been approved by Nicholson's predecessor but died once Nicholson took over the VA, Sullivan told ABC News.

Sullivan said he was told the cost of the system -- less than $1 million to build and requiring a handful of staff to maintain -- was prohibitive.

"I don't think it's a good idea for the people responsible for the problem to be in charge of fixing it," he told ABC News.

In a written response to ABC News, the VA said a new tracking system "very near deployment" would allow them to track casualties soon after they left the battlefield, much the way CTS was designed to do in 2004.

[Miss Chybil]

2. One million dollars. Period. nt

[KT2000]

3. March issue of Vanity Fair

The #1 federal contractor is SAIC - Science Applications International Corp. They have 9,000 contracts presently, two are for $1 billion and over a hundred are $10 million a piece. They specialize in information warfare, information dominance, surveillance, weapons and more.

They employ retired executive appointees (CIA, DOD, NSA, FBI etc.), military officers and fought for years to have Saddam Hussein taken out.

For billlions upon billions they track all kinds of things for the government and especially the iraw war.

Guess the military-industrial complex does not concern itself with the soldiers though.

[salin]

4. absolutely infuriating.

k & r.