And They Want to Run It All

It'd be easy to turn this story into a condemnation of the VA:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - At least 1,200 veterans across the country have been mistakenly told by the Veterans Administration that they suffer from a fatal neurological disease.

One of the leaders of a Gulf War veterans group says panicked veterans from Alabama, Florida, Kansas, North Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming have contacted the group about the error.

Denise Nichols, the vice president of the National Gulf War Resource Center, says the VA is blaming a coding error for the mistake.

Letters dated Aug. 12 were intended to notify veterans who have Lou Gehrig's disease of disability benefits available to them.

Calls to the VA were not immediately returned Monday.

Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS, is a rapidly progressive disease that attacks the nerve cells responsible for controlling voluntary muscles.

Easy to condemn, but probably not accurate. The VA is mostly made up of dedicated professionals who give 100% to their job. It's the bureaucracy within the VA that is the problem. The bureaucracy, and a "coding error" caused this problem. And these people want more computerization of records. Without first seeing if computerization of medical records improves, or hurts, the delivery of care.

Now what I have to wonder: Was the computer system at the VA on the ball enough to get copies of the official government how-to-die book out to all these veterans before the error was caught? And has every single man been contacted and informed of the error?