As before, most Americans are unhappy with the government’s social policy, which was uncovered by the latest study released by the Rasmussen Reports. According to the study, Americans continue to feel that the anti-poverty programs just make the problem worse.
The Gallup Institute reports the every growing concern that most share due the growing social inequality in the US. According to this recent study, the absolute majority of the people with low income levels worry “a great deal” about hunger and homelessness. At the same time, 47% of middle-income Americans share with concerns, while those that enjoy massive incomes are still not feeling completely immune to these concerns. The highest levels of anxiety has been registered in low-income families, residing in lower-income affordable households.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the recent scandal that broke out in one the institutions supervised by the Ministry of Veterans Affairs of the United States triggered an internal investigation. The scandal broke off when a wife of one of Vietnam war veterans took the picture of a waiting room in the Durham, NC VA Hospital, where one veteran lying on the floor and another slouched in a wheelchair in excruciating pain, waiting for hours for someone to attend to them. As it’s been reported by the Huffington Post:
“It was the worst thing to ever happen in my life,” Vietnam War veteran Jesse Lee, 63, who identified himself as the man photographed in the wheelchair, said as he described his agony.
In turn, The Daily Caller would draw attention to yet another loud scandal that broke out in a hospital for military veterans in Cleveland (Ohio). It would note that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital that touted its program focusing on 20 transgendered individuals, cut its funding allocated on the caring for the remaining 111,000 veterans, saving money on health care essentials like keeping its medical equipment clean and properly training employees, US government auditors found.
No less scandalous is the situation in the social care for the elderly that has recently been reported by the CNN, drawing its attention to the suffering endured by the sick, dying and raped in America’s nursing homes. According to the media source, the unthinkable is happening at facilities throughout the United States: vulnerable seniors are being raped and sexually abused by the very people that were tasked with tending to them. Some accounts of alleged sexual abuse come from civil and criminal court documents filed in nursing homes, assisted living facilities and individuals who work there. The description of the cases that occur in such facilities, as it’s been noted by the CNN, range from sad to sickening.
It is impossible to establish exactly how many people have become victimized in such, but the journalists that were tasked with studying those cases, after analyzing the state and federal data and interviews with experts, regulators and the families of victims have come to the conclusion that the problem is far more widespread that it was initially assumed.
Even those facilities that actively impede investigations or cover up abuse often get little more than a slap on the wrist. The vast majority of nursing homes with horror stories chronicled in the inspection reports are still in business, accepting new residents today.
Just like the Trump administration of Trump that has got away with countless empty promises of making “America for the Americans” yet again, when the actual reality of living in America today is getting increasingly more depressive.
Grete Mautner is an indepenent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
