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Jan. 29, 2023 - Stew Peters Show
58:53
VA Federal Advisory Committee Is Failing Veterans
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We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
Earlier this week, Ben Krause and I took a trip to Washington, D.C. to attend the annual meeting of the VA's Caregiver Program Federal Advisory Committee.
Today we're going to talk a little bit about that experience, what was talked about, and what the outcomes may be.
So stick with us.
Don't go away.
we start now.
Hey everybody, welcome here to the next episode of the Richard Leonard Show.
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Okay, so let's get started.
We kind of have a lot to get to today.
As I said in the intro, Ben Krause and I, we flew out to Washington, D.C., and Attended the committee meeting for the Federal Advisory Committee of the VA Caregiver Program.
You may remember earlier last year, well, the summer of last year, we covered this committee and this impending purge of legacy caregivers from the program.
Due to the efforts of this show, veteran warriors and some others, we were able to, in my opinion, put enough heat on the program and on this committee to postpone the purge for three years while the Congress and the committee and the program figure out legislation to make the the pause of this purge permanent and I got
to tell you folks that The caregivers in question, and you know, we saw testimony from people like Robin who was on the show with Ben this last summer.
We don't need handoffs.
We need and we deserve choice.
It's our choice to care for our veterans at home.
The program provides us the scaffolding to provide that care.
This committee has had ample time, but the community sees little to no effort to support us.
All we hear about is how we can be handed off.
You've had the year of the current secretary, two prior secretaries.
Ms. Cavett is the national director of the caregiver program and now a senior advisor.
Therefore, you have had ample time to provide recommendations, but we have not seen any action or recommendations regarding the erroneous discharges and false notes in our medical records.
If you can't get the job done with your $535,000 annual budget, there are others who are more than willing to make recommendations that will benefit this community in a way that is needed.
Write the wrongs or resign your seat on this committee respectfully.
These caregivers have extremely compelling stories.
And they are dead set on doing whatever it takes To keep this program alive.
And I think that part of the thing that people are missing out on is that this program is and was designed for whoever these caregivers are.
In many cases, their wives or husbands.
We even met a fellow earlier this week who's taking care of his father who was poisoned due to an incinerator on the base he lived at in Japan.
This guy's dad came down with cancer, had strokes, and is not able to function on his own.
So his son is Dropped his career, dropped everything, moved back home to Maryland to take care of his dad full-time.
And the support that these caregivers need is seemingly not there.
It's not available, or at least not readily available.
And so the whole point of Ben and I to attend this committee hearing Was to, number one, speak.
Speak out about what we feel is going on and what could happen better.
What could be done better for these caregivers.
But also remember that this program is to take care of the veteran.
In the best way possible.
And for many of these veterans who are in this program, who are being taken care of by their loved ones, this is their choice.
Their choice is to be home, not institutionalized, not at an adult daycare, but be at home and get the care that they need from their spouses, from their kids, from their aunts and uncles, whoever it may be.
And this seems to be a problem for the VA and for this committee because time after time and story after story from caregiver after caregiver, there's issues getting benefits, there's issues staying qualified to be in the program, and it seems like it changes often.
And so, the whole job of this committee, which is made up of people who are not federal employees, in fact, they are federal employees when they are participating in activities as a committee.
So, for that purpose, they are federal employees, but day to day, they are not.
They are CEOs of non-profits.
There's one woman on the committee who is a gold star wife, which means she lost her husband in combat.
There's another lady on the committee who is a gold star mother, which means she lost her son in combat.
And so the job of this committee is to gather at least once a year and discuss how this program is going and then make recommendations which go directly to the secretary of the VA about how to make changes to this program to improve it.
Now, I think that where After sitting in the committee meeting, which we only were able to be at for one day due to restrictions of the air travel and we have obligations at home, but we were able to get there for the first day, which was the most important day for us to be there because that's when they let community members speak.
About what's going on and help to give them material to make meaningful recommendations to the secretary about how to make this program better.
And I gotta tell you, after sitting in this meeting all day, It doesn't seem like many members of the committee are a thousand percent clear about what their purpose is.
And when I say that, I mean they're not a thousand percent clear about why this program is important.
You know, we heard some things about Some contracts for care which would push out the loved ones who are providing care for these veterans.
We heard a lot about the PACT Act, which we've talked about on this show before, and it wasn't very clear to me and a few others in the room about why the PACT Act is relevant to the VA caregiver program.
Yes, it's true that many veterans who participate in the program were exposed to open air burn pits, but for the most part, a large percentage of these veterans in the program are maxed out or very close to maxed out on their disability benefits, or they wouldn't necessarily qualify for the program.
And there's a select few that may benefit from the PAC-DAC, but in the context of making the program better...
Two hours of discussion or an hour of discussion, whatever it was, about the PACT Act and how many claims have been processed since January 1st and what's coming up next for the PACT Act and how they're going to go forth and continue to make a dent in these hundreds of thousands of claims that they've gotten was irrelevant.
And so when we got close to the end of the day, It was time for the committee, or I'm sorry, the community participants that were sitting in the audience to address the committee.
Everybody who chose to speak was given five minutes to say what they needed to say.
And it seemed like, for the most part, that all the words that were said, including the words from myself and Ben Krause, and all the rest of them were caregivers, fell somewhat on deaf ears.
One of the things that I really took away from the day-long event was that the VA in general, and especially the people that are in charge of running this program, and especially the people that are in charge of running this program, like Meg Cabot, who we talked about on the show this last summer
Part of what they had to say was that they're having trouble having conversations and connecting with millennials.
And Generation Z veterans.
So, in my opinion, that's very young veterans, all the way up to about 39 years old.
And the community comments, my words to them were almost this verbatim.
It seems as if part of the problem is communication.
I guess what I really want to say to you guys is that communication seems to be the issue.
We talk about trust in the VA. We talk about all kinds of miscommunications and how do we reach out.
I would ask you how many enlisted veterans are on this committee?
Enlisted soldiers?
E-6, C-7, and low.
Those are maybe the places in which you need to integrate with yourselves.
Because those are the people that are going to be able to give you the no BS view on what really is going on.
You said, the committee said, we're having trouble connecting with these veterans.
They also talked about having trouble connecting, talked about having trouble connecting with caregivers who are experiencing problems.
Well, my words to them were, they're right here.
They're right here in this room.
So, with the understanding that there's thousands of people that are having issues, this is probably a good place to start.
You have people in the room who have left their veterans at home with alternate caregivers for two days.
To be here to talk to you.
You said throughout the day that you're having trouble connecting with these very people that are sitting in this room.
And you know what?
When the day was over, when the meeting was adjourned for the day, almost all of those committee members got up out of their chair.
We heard talk from many members about going to have dinner at Elizabeth Dole's house.
And walked out of the room.
But yet the people they said they were having trouble connecting with were right there in the room.
These committee members couldn't take 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 2 minutes to talk to these people who they say they want to connect with.
At least give them a card.
Hey, give me a call.
Send me an email.
We really should talk about this.
None of that.
So when they say that communication is a problem, I can see why.
It doesn't seem as if they're interested in engaging in any communication.
There's just a whole litany of things that we have to talk about.
We've run out of time in the segment, but I want to keep you here, so please come back.
When we come back from the break, Ben Krause is going to be on, and we're going to just have a dialogue about our experience there.
We were there together.
We sat through it together and flew in and out together.
So don't go away.
We'll be right back.
Hey folks, welcome back here to the show.
As promised, I got Ben on the other line before we bring him in.
In the last segment, I was telling you about the fact meeting that we went to.
I gave you my impression about what happened.
I think that was pretty clear.
But here we are with Mr.
Ben.
Hello, Ben.
How are you?
Howdy!
I am great to be back on land.
Yes, yes, back in the tundra.
The weather in D.C., folks, was not bad, actually.
It was 40-ish degrees and a little wet, but it's a lot better than 8 degrees here or whatever we got.
All right, Ben.
Washington, D.C., the VA Caregivers Federal Advisory Committee meeting.
What were your impressions?
Man, it was like if you had a barn and then somebody said, use a shotgun to try to hit the barn and somehow missed the entire barn, that was kind of like the meeting.
I think that was the meeting.
The caregivers got up and talked about what their experiences are, the people that the program is actually designed to help and support while they help and support the veterans who they're providing caregiver services to, generally husbands and wives.
It's as if they were like two ships passing in the night, you know?
Yes.
I remember when I got up to talk and I think everyone, at least three of us, like, hey!
Initially they're like, oh, we just can't seem to reach the 30 to 39-year-old group and we've learned through all these hundreds of millions of dollars in studies and surveys that They don't trust us.
Weird.
Wow.
Veterans don't trust you?
That's incredible.
And so we're, anyway, and so yes, there's this population of veterans that they don't trust you and we don't know how to get them to trust us.
And then we have this large, pretty large group, I think, of caregivers actually in the room ready to talk who have already talked.
Explaining their experience and it's like hey they're back there see those caregivers there's like five of them just go ask them right now just go walk over there and they're all all these you know old stodgy for the most part white Old people,
right, that are all, you know, retired colonel this or that, or retired general this or that, or, you know, professors of this or that, or doctor of this or that, all just kind of stared at us.
They're probably in their mainly late 50s through 70s, I think.
And we're just like, oh, sounds like an idea.
And not one of them got up and shook the hand of these caregivers in the back of the room once becoming aware that they're actually just sitting there with experiences and information to share.
Well, my point to them was amongst many things, such as talking about Secretary McDonough's childhood nickname, which nobody guessed, but that's another story for another time.
So we talked about how they really needed to pull in the caregivers and veterans who are So passionate about their position that they're actually appealing it and hiring attorneys, willing to hire attorneys, because they're so passionate to get the case fixed.
And then also to pull in the attorneys that represent them, perhaps, to find out If they really, again, want to know what's wrong with the VA in these instances, to talk to the people that experience it firsthand, both the folks that are willing to pay to fix it and those that get paid to fix it, and find out, hey, what are the problems and how do we fix it, right?
Because then that alleviates the problems and Attorneys may move on to other issues that are more needy as far as trying to fix and the veterans and the caregivers will get what they deserve and there's no reason to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contractors to golly gee just figure out this mystery of why veterans don't trust us.
We just don't know other than we keep kicking them out of the program without valid explanations or due process or proper due process anyway.
And they just kind of look at you like, oh, that sounds cute.
All right.
Well, anyway, off to go have Din Din with Grammy Dole.
See y'all.
Grammy.
Old Nana Dole.
Old Nana Dole.
Gotta go talk to Old Nana Dole over at the Whitewater.
I think that it's important to point out that there was actually one committee member that came over at the end of the day, and I don't remember her name, but she was a woman who was a gold star mother.
Oh, right.
And she at least had the common decency to come over to the group of caregivers, and we were all kind of standing around having a chat.
And said, thank you for sharing your story.
It's important to know these things so that we can make a change for the better.
So when I left there yesterday, now that I really give it some thought while you were talking, I was comforted by the fact that at least one person came over to at least acknowledge what was said.
What's disappointing, though, is that none of that made it into day two, which you and I didn't attend, due to travel arrangements.
None of that made it into the recommendations for how to make the program better.
Well, Richard, they just need more data.
If they only had more data, they would know how to make it better.
Right.
And the point is that that data that they need doesn't come in the form of some BS survey.
It doesn't come in the form of spying on veterans, which is a whole other conversation.
It comes in the form of talking to people that were standing in the God dang room.
They were there.
How about instead of going over to old Grammy Dole's house, Why don't we have a dinner?
We'll all pay for our own dinner, but in the same room, and you talk to them about what's going on.
Wouldn't that have been a little more advantageous to the reason for the meeting anyway?
Well, I mean, these do cost about $250,000 a pop, or is it 500?
I can't remember which.
Anyway, a lot of zeros.
Many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars to hold one advisory committee for this group.
And frankly, I think that by muddying the waters with real-world experience and actual information, That didn't cost tens of millions of dollars to gather through their AI partners, right?
That it might just muddy the water too much and overcomplicate the situation when it's so much easier to continue to point at the lack of data when they're unable to do their jobs.
Again, I've never seen a group of grown-ass adults get lectured by VA telling them at the beginning of this meeting to do your jobs, and if you don't, you're fired.
Yeah, we'll ask you to leave.
So we'll ask you to leave, and if that doesn't fix it, then we'll just disband it.
So you guys have a job to do.
You better come up with some really good recommendations.
And what I noticed, again, is we just need more data.
We need more tracking to get that data.
We need our stakeholders, whoever they are, to go get us that data.
And we just need to keep doing that, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.
But it didn't address, nobody addressed the purge.
Nope.
And how it got stopped or anything like that, it's like it didn't happen.
And there didn't appear to be any concern about how to avoid problems like that in the future, which made me think that it was on purpose.
You know, this is just they got caught.
Really.
And it made bad press.
And you don't want to, you know, make hard-off veterans suicidal more than they already might be.
You think that they didn't address the purge on purpose?
Was it because maybe we were there?
Well, I think the purge was on purpose.
No, I think the purge was on purpose.
And they happen to get caught.
And everyone inside the system, including many of the members in the advisory committee, are probably aware to one degree or another that that was part of the system they were trying to roll out and they got burned, you know, because it just looked so bad and so dubious.
And in addition to that, to have a small little nonprofit like Veteran Warriors Succeed in part of a lawsuit at the U.S. Court of Appeals for Federal Claims and then get started up to the U.S. Supreme Court or at least, you know, a motion up to the Supreme Court or filing up to the Supreme Court to continue that fight.
I don't think they saw that coming and a lot of the individuals who invested a lot of their time and money to shut down the legacy caregiver part of the program or to diminish it almost entirely, that they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar and are a lot embarrassed.
Well, they should be.
They should be embarrassed.
I think they're just mad about it, frankly, because they got beat by somebody with no budget, right?
Or limited budget, anyway.
You know, that's just because that's how, frankly, stupid they were.
And they're arrogant, whoever did it, right?
The real decision-makers behind the great curtain of Oz there, whoever did it got Nailed, and I think that they're embarrassed that they got nailed by a small little nonprofit that they've tried to avoid tangling with for years and years and refused to even basically acknowledge, you know, for fear of running off script.
And to have that same org ping them and be halfway successful to this point is probably a shot to their ego.
Whoever did it, anyway, we don't fully know, but I think we have some ideas.
Yeah, and it seems to me that part of that problem is that, you're right, number one, there's a small little non-profit that won some court cases, built some traction, and Nailed you against the wall.
And then also here comes this little not-for-nothing podcast to put it out a little bit further.
And all of a sudden there's some attention.
What I found interesting about the whole thing, and even learning more from the caregivers once we got into Washington, was that the talks of The conversations on this show, as well as other things that happened, made it all the way up to VA brass.
What's her name?
Meg Cabot apparently is sending emails to other VA officials that she's so offended that I told her to go lay by her dish and I was mean to her.
Well, you're not mean to her.
She didn't come on the show.
It's not really the same thing.
We don't really know Meg Cabot personally.
This is just more of us discussing the information that we could find through the sources that were available to us.
The program and the agency is rather secretive about some of the things that it's been up to and I think the caregiver program is probably one of those areas where there is most clearly something going on and now we have a better idea thanks to McDonough's presentation about what it is that they're working on and it would appear that what they're working on is the future of What they're going to do to the boomers
all across America, not just veterans.
And they're going to roll out basically caregiver 2.0 for our ma and pa's and they're going to, you know, do to them what they did to our fine veterans and their caregivers, right?
So they age in place at home and, you know, but instead of having a caregiver, you know, a 70 or 60 year old spouse, it's probably too old to do that kind of help anyway.
They're going to outsource all that stuff To, you know, their preferred vendors.
You know, the ones that they're already building out those systems within the VA arena.
And then once they're ready to go prime time, then they're going to roll that out and become the stakeholders for America.
Yeah, and I think that it's going to end up being a situation where we need to follow the money.
It's interesting and I would like to do some more research about some of the organizations that were present that had representatives there on the committee and find out if they're in bed at all with this Elizabeth Dole Foundation or any other foundation that has anything to do with this program.
But folks, stick with us.
We'll be right back for the next segment.
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Hey folks, welcome back for the next segment of the show.
Ben, I think that we should talk about some of what we missed on day two, which would have been Thursday of this last week.
So day two is when the committee reconvenes and they unveil their magical recommendations that are gonna make it to the secretary of the VA's desk about how to improve this program.
And it was a lot of BS, if you ask me.
What do you think about them, Ben?
To be quite honest with you, I read all of them, but I didn't read through them all because...
Oh, it was just a bunch of gobbledygook in many ways.
Yeah.
So basically, again, their thing is, well, we recommend you get more data.
Well, I don't find that to be much of a recommendation.
How do you fix the program and make it so that it's more customer-friendly and that it serves the people that it was designed to serve, which ultimately they're helping the caregiver help the veteran, right?
And so by helping the veteran, you're helping the caregiver get the support they need.
And not starve.
But that seems to be missed on them.
And so to get at that, right, to really help these caregivers out, you know, because that's what they're passionate about.
Darn it.
They decided, all right, what we need first is we need to know the demographics, who we're dealing with.
Well, you should know that already.
You should already know that because I bet damn well it's already in the documents.
Some of them you could eventually figure it out.
No, no, no.
We've got to create more studies and look at more things.
And so they're going to look at other demographic questions to help them solve these riddles to help the people that they're supposed to help.
And so to get at that, they're going to look at they need to know what race that the people are, ethnicity, ethnicity, Age, gender, language, religion, and sexual orientation.
Because nothing helps you care for a loved one or friend better than knowing who you might want to sleep with.
Yeah.
So that seems important.
Yeah.
Okay, so they're gonna add that they could be collected on the application.
Now, the application's already pretty long, but okay.
And then they say, well, we could add them to the Karma system.
I'm like, well, I'm pretty sure that stuff should be in there already.
What's the Karma system for folks who don't know?
So the CARMA system is their record management system.
So pretty straightforward record management application.
So CARMA, C-A-R-M-A is an acronym.
Anyway, and then they say efforts should be made to collect demographics from new and existing veteran caregiver participants.
Like, well, you're already doing that.
Or should be.
Or should be.
I mean, if you haven't already been doing that in the past however long, you know, 12 years or however that they've been working on this stuff, that just seems like a missed opportunity.
But anyway, so now this is the thing.
And of course, who's going to help them get this?
Oh, stakeholders, which basically means our friends, the government contractors that already get hundreds of millions of dollars.
We need more of that.
To get that extra, extra data.
More money spent.
Yep.
Right.
Right.
More.
We got to spend that more money.
More money, more problems.
But apparently they, you know, they're kind of aware of that.
Then number two, they reworded.
A recommendation from a previous draft.
Well, that took a lot of rocket science there.
Thanks, folks.
So you're $500,000 at work right there.
They're going to reword soup something.
Okay, great.
Thanks.
You're fired at this point.
Anyway, so this one is, more efforts are needed to manage expectations of caregivers.
So what that basically means is, you know, we need to basically shoot down the dreams and hopes of everybody to get the support that they're hoping to get.
And we want them to, you know, lower their expectations.
You know, Bobby's not going to be a scientist after all, folks.
And, you know, so they're going to formally outline the process.
Again, as if they didn't do this before.
We have to make sure they know that there's going to be home visits and wellness checks.
Oh.
But here's the thing.
Let me ask you this.
Many of the caregivers in which we've spoke to over the last several months, covering this last summer and now again, all have said or at least alluded to that initially when they got in the program, it was running fine.
So now we need to manage their expectations.
How about we just own up to what we said we were going to do Some years ago, before all these changes came about, and the expectations would be managed.
You know, and this committee, folks, was put together in 2017, and now all of a sudden we're talking about getting race and age and gender and sexual orientation on some survey or data collection system.
Not only should that be done already, because this veteran is already in the VA system, But it should have been done, and this should have been a recommendation, if at all needed, in 2017.
I'm sure it already is in the system.
It's just another excuse to postpone not coming up with something creative that's useful.
So the next one is they wanted to, the VA should make comprehensive efforts to implement electronic health records.
As it relates to this population.
Like, I don't know what planet they're on.
This has already been done.
They've had electronic health records and in relation to this program for a long time.
Isn't that what CARMLE is?
A record management?
It is electronic.
It contains health information.
That are records to manage it.
They may not know what they're talking about.
It wouldn't surprise me if most of them in the room aren't familiar with some of this stuff.
In this instance, they're complaining about the EHR system implementation not being rolled out as quickly because veterans were harmed because they kept breaking the new system they're rolling out to the tune of $20 billion.
They can't seem to get it right.
They're talking about how VA is halting it several times and this effort is to ensure, you know, blah, blah, blah.
And then they talk about timely edits to inaccuracies in the record is a major concern for caregivers.
Growing concern over access to veteran and caregiver medical records amongst VA staff.
I'm not even sure.
All of it seems irrelevant to what the problem is.
No, right.
It's not a fix.
It's not like the policies and procedures are the problem they need to address.
And they're just touching on the...
It's like, hey, I need to get my car cleaned because, you know, my son maybe took it out and went mudding and got it all dirty.
And I'm like, hey, son...
Go clean the car.
You got it full of mud.
And he brings it back, and maybe he ran the windshield wipers, and otherwise the mud's all over the rest of it.
And I'm like, dude, you didn't wash the car.
You ground it.
Yeah.
Go lay by your dish, son.
Yeah.
Yeah, with Meg.
Go lay by her.
Down.
Well, just got to clean the whole car, buddy, not just the windshield.
Come on, goofball.
Well, so let me ask you this quick, Ben, because...
You sat in the same room I did.
And at one point in...
This one really threw me for a loop.
At one point during the day, a committee member had asked, Hey, is there a database of all these committees?
Can we talk to each other?
Well, it turns out that this woman has been on the committee for some time.
I think since its inception.
Since 2017.
Okay.
Well, that makes it even more egregious, in my opinion.
But what all of this seems like is that most of these folks on this committee are being told what to do.
And it has nothing to do...
There would have been no difference at all if none of us would have showed up to provide public comment.
And so is it a case maybe that somebody...
I don't believe that out of the 24 people that are listed on this committee, that all of them are so damn clueless that no work is getting done.
Well, I think that that's a, you know, so who is doing the work in between these meetings, you know?
Well, not that, but who's telling them what to do?
Who's telling them what to do, what the information is?
I think that maybe what we ought to do would be to have more outreach.
Because I think what's happening, and if I'm not, I know what VA usually does, so if people are telling these individuals information that they don't like and they're a little bit shocked about, and I'm sure they were shocked as hell to see us there talking about What we were talking about and having video cameras and recorders and all kinds of other things all over the place.
So I think that that was maybe a little bit surprising, right?
Because they didn't anticipate such a turnout.
And...
If I were to be a betting guy, I think that the VA and other insiders probably went back with them and told a bunch of lies and engaged in some defamation and attempted to gaslight these folks to not take what we had to say seriously, which would have taken a bit of time to spin up the webs.
But nonetheless, If I were to guess, I think that's what happened.
So the VA gave them a bunch of stuff, we all showed up, and they got caught giving these individuals a bunch of hot garbage that day, and it just was completely out of touch.
The...
Yeah.
So I don't believe that they're giving...
I think they're keeping this committee in the dark.
And again, I think part of the reason is because they want this milquetoast garbage recommendations.
They don't want real recommendations.
So when they're faced with having to hear what we have to say in the veteran community about this, and it's just so...
Incongruent with what they have otherwise been told.
Well, everyone telling us that must be crazy.
And they must hate the VA. And that must be why.
And they don't trust us.
They don't trust us.
We won't listen to them because they're idiots.
But they don't trust us.
We don't know why.
Well, it certainly seems like whatever time that they were given or took to deliberate, About these recommendations.
It was an extremely short amount of time, and there wasn't a lot of thought put into them.
And I think that you're right, Ben.
I think that there is a clear effort to avoid addressing the real issue because whoever the puppeteer is of this whole thing is telling them, don't listen.
They're okay.
They're harmless.
And so I think that, coupled with some more outreach, we have to find strength in numbers.
We have to find multiple voices.
And we have to get the word out.
Well, we have to get the word out, but you have to make sure...
I think what is clear to me, at least about this caregiver thing, Is that we can't just rely on the opportunity to talk to these individuals when they come here to D.C. or wherever to have that two-day intensive, you know, and then in between go to former Senator Elizabeth Dole's home to have Dinden and come back the next day.
So I suspect that...
What would be needed, like if I were an advocate working in this space, I would probably want to make sure that if I have a point that I want them to hear, that I make sure it gets in front of them everywhere.
Do they go to church somewhere?
Do they work at a certain university, right?
Public university, for example, like in Colorado.
Or do they run a non-profit in Florida?
A great place to go on vacation.
And do they maybe go skiing and happen to drop by one of the universities there to make sure that they're aware?
There's a lot of ways to make sure that the appropriate information gets in front of these decision makers.
In a way that they can digest, regardless of how, you know, uncomplicated the information needs to be conveyed to them, whether it be by a baby bird, for example, or other methods of just, you know, spoon feeding that, you know, maybe that's the approach that needs to be taken, or through video, you know, or rating it, or song.
You know, I can sing sometimes.
Richard, you know, I know you can sing.
Only in the shower, man.
Only in the shower.
That's what I heard.
Your wife told me about that.
So I think that maybe coming up with a method that is proven for that individual, which really just, again, apparently we need to do more research too.
So we need our own V-signals to understand these individuals better and Through our methods of research and information gathering, perhaps that will help us inform them so they can help us, right?
So we just need to work harder to reach them in a way, you know, maybe where they're most comfortable, you know?
And we need to just learn what environment that is so that we can do it.
Maybe adopt a more like NPR tone when we're talking about these particular issues and just make sure that they're in their safe space to hear the message we may have.
Maybe also along with that, you know, we at the network have made some friends with some members of Congress.
Maybe they will be able to hear our story and maybe some of them are on the veterans page.
Maybe that would be an avenue to take.
But I'm sure we'll go at the network.
We'll go through the Rolodex and see if anybody wants to talk to us.
Maybe not.
Maybe so.
But we'll be right back, folks.
Don't go away.
Hey, guys.
Welcome back here for the last segment of the show.
I think, Ben, that we should pivot the conversation here and talk about what The next steps for this show and this group of people who seem to be disenfranchised are.
And I think that the answer to that is that all these complaints, I put up quotes, or things that were brought to the attention of the committee that are broken, They need to be put out.
If this committee and this program are not going to identify these complaints that are being brought to them, somebody has to talk about it.
And I think that we should use this show to talk about it.
So, you know, getting together with these caregivers and all of this information that's been gathered and all the emails and all the documents and all the everything.
I think we should compile and do an expose.
If we need to do a one or two hour documentary type presentation to put out to the masses, we should do that.
If we need to spend six weeks of this show on that, we should do that.
Because nobody's talking about this.
I don't know about you, Ben, but I haven't seen anything about this caregiver program and the failures of this committee in the mainstream media.
They want to make this look like it is chocolate rivers and gumdrop rainbows.
I mean, that's kind of in the game with the VA all the time anyway, because they want to sell...
They're healthcare and solutions to the American public and they've been working on that model for 20 years.
The problem is, with any kind of socialized health system, it's going to be usually inferior to the market solution which they're competing with right now.
They're a bit stuck because how they've been running the system is like handling hot garbage.
It just isn't that attractive.
Looking at this, I think it's really important, especially for any of the committee members or their staff that may be having to watch this because the committee members may be too busy.
And so they have their staffer watch it.
Well, for all of you, we're going to talk about you.
Step one, we're going to talk about you so that everybody understands who you are, where you are.
In an illegal way, of course, it's not going to be for illegal purposes, but if you're a federal employee serving in this incredible capacity, we want to understand what Criteria that you satisfied to be on this committee.
What do they do?
What kind of decisions can we anticipate?
So that's going to be a component of what we cover here.
And I think that's going to be one of the first things that my team works on is to understand who the decision makers really are.
And where they're coming from so that we can, again, better understand how to provide them with information that is appreciative.
But for those also watching it, it's really important to note that when the Department of Veterans Affairs has an agenda and you and your unfortunate story is standing between their agenda And where they're at right now, they are going to spend so much BS about that person to try to ensure that whoever is giving them a little minute of thought will not do that anymore.
So they poison the well, so to speak, on people and besmirch them and share information they shouldn't or make up information out of a whole cloth, which I've seen.
All of which I have seen.
We've had instances where veterans that I've been helping were getting ground with certain larger legal organizations.
And the second they would talk to the VA, the VA would basically say, well, they're crazy.
You can't listen to them.
And I'd find out about it.
And, you know, half the time it's like, well, yeah, they are maybe crazy.
They are diagnosed with that crazy thing that you're talking about.
So, in fact, true.
But that doesn't mean also the thing that they're complaining about or the abuse they're dealing with isn't true as well.
And in this kind of paternalistic atmosphere, especially as paternalistic as VA claims to be, Then you would think that they'd be all the more ready to help that person rather than besmirch them to drive a wedge between the person trying to help and the veteran who is desperate.
But the VA just does it and they do it with impunity because they don't believe they could be held accountable.
Well, and it makes you wonder what the ulterior motives are.
If the agency really exists to serve veterans at all at its core, you know, is that really what the agency is all about?
Because it seems like, you know, when the rubber hits the road, they're very quick to turn their backs on the vets they're supposedly helping if there's some other agenda that they're actually pursuing, which I would argue is actually the case with the caregiver program right now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And furthermore, at the opening of yesterday's debacle, There was a gentleman that presented that told this whole committee, for the most part, as you stated in the second segment, Ben, you guys got work to do.
And if it's not going to get done, then we're going to thank you for your service and we're going to ask you to leave and either disband this committee because they're not getting anything done, or we're going to replace you with somebody who will.
And to be quite honest, Ben, I think to a certain extent, It would be better at this point for the committee to just be disbanded.
Because it seems very difficult for anybody who's worth their salt to get on this committee to effect real change.
Well, what I don't understand, and I'm sure I'm wrong, but what I don't understand when I look at this The recommendations here for the program are,
and again, I might be wrong, but I would think like an advisory committee, they might be independent and whatever, but their recommendations are on VA placeholder slides that say Veterans Experience Office.
It seems to suggest to me that these are part of a larger Like, the VA is putting it together?
I guess, personally, I would like to see, you know, maybe one of the actual committee members in the committee put together the recommendations that are being recommended to the VA. Not the VA giving themselves their own recommendations.
I mean, what's the point, right?
Well, it would make sense...
Save $500,000 and, you know, save everyone a couple days.
Yeah, right.
And it would make sense that the VA would, if indeed they're putting out recommendations...
They're going to recommend to themselves things that are already happening, because they must not see that the system is broken in this particular instance.
I think the system is doing exactly what they want it to do.
I think that they want it to be privatized, which is interesting, right, because it's run by Democrats, supposedly, the current VA, and yet they're pushing this forward to definitely be a much more privatized System, which I'm baffled by because Democrats are supposedly pro-union and all that,
and they want to grow the agency through more union employees that feed the AFGE. But instead, this other system that is rolling out is most certainly privatized.
That seems to be the aim of it.
So I'm baffled by the rhetoric that we always see during election time about the VA and how supposedly the Democrats are going to rebuild it and make it better and stronger and cut down on outsourcing of it.
And then this is most clearly an outsourcing maneuver for this program that they're going to be rolling out.
But now getting back though to what you were talking about, Richard, What are we gonna do?
All right, so we're gonna talk about, we're gonna learn about the committee members so that we can feed them the information or show them the information or whatever the verb is that we're gonna do with that information so that they understand what's going on and they, you know, can't avoid it.
And then we're also going to be pulling in veterans who are or non-veterans who are whoever it is that is the caregiver and hear about their story and the veterans experience And why this caregiver is so important to them and why they need the support.
One of the things that blew my mind going there was the number of caregivers that have given up six-figure incomes to be the caregiver.
There's quite a few.
Giving up everything.
Giving up everything.
A whole career.
And so if we're going to talk about the veteran experience and the veteran experience office, it starts with listening to the stories of the people who are living the hard road, if you want to call it that, every day.
And you say you're having trouble connecting with this population of people.
Well, guess what?
The Richard Leonard Show will help you out and bring you their stories.
Maybe it'll be easier for you to connect with them.
We will talk to them.
We'll put them on here.
I don't got to be the talking head every time.
Ben, you don't have to be the talking head every time.
I got no problem sharing my time with somebody that wants to tell their story about their experience and how they're getting screwed over.
So I think that's an excellent idea, and we will start working on that Promptly.
Ben, we got about 20 seconds left of the show.
I'm going to give you the last word.
What do you got?
Well, we got to, you know, kick some butt and take some names.
I think that's what we're going to do.
And we're going to do well.
We're going to do it fast.
There you go.
Very well put.
Folks, stay tuned because we're going to bring you a whole lot more of this stuff.
You deserve to hear it and their stories deserve to be told.
So thank you for joining us.
I really appreciate your time.
And have a good evening.
And stay tuned for more because it's coming.
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