Gazette Op-Ed: Real Reform at the VA
Real Reform at the VA
By Congressman Doug Lamborn
The Obama administration has broken a promise to our veterans. Since the revelations of secret wait lists arose in 2014, the VA Department has made little progress toward reform.
Leadership and reform must begin at the top. Secretary Robert McDonald's recent comparison of veteran wait times to Disneyland wait times shows that he doesn't understand this crisis. The VA needs to remember its purpose: providing quality care for veterans - not generating red tape, defending its institutional prerogatives and protecting delinquent employees.
The armed forces of the United States always step forward to defend our nation. Upon separating, they're left to seek medical care from a VA that has proven itself incapable of providing adequate timely care for our veterans. Despite President Barack Obama's assurances, an 89 percent increase in its budget since 2009, and the enactment of the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, the VA still fails our veterans.
Even with the tools to hold VA employees accountable for poor service, the VA has been reluctant to enforce accountability measures. Wait times are still too long, and it is still too difficult for veterans to access private health care providers. With an administration and VA that refuse to acknowledge that real problems persist, the time has arrived to have a meaningful conversation on how best to serve our veterans.
As originally envisioned, the VA would provide care for injured veterans. Over the years, this mandate was expanded to provide general healthcare services to larger numbers of veterans. Though well-intentioned, this increased costs and diluted healthcare services for the veterans it intended to help. Of today's unique VA enrollees, 59 percent don't have a service-connected disability.
To address the myriad of issues plaguing VA healthcare services the Congress needs to change the structure and administration of the VA in such a way that will NOT negatively impact current VA enrollees. This is why I plan to be an original co-sponsor of the "Caring for our Heroes in the 21st Century Act." This reform legislation seeks the following three outcomes:
First, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) needs to be separated from the VA bureaucracy. VHA needs to function as an independent organization outside the governance of the federal General Schedule system and the Merit System Protection Board. As we've seen, the board often takes the side of lawbreakers and condones criminal behavior by reinstating VA personnel even after they've received disciplinary action. An independent VHA would have more authority to do what the VA has failed to do: make difficult decisions regarding personnel, facilities and partnerships.
Additionally, an independent VHA should provide healthcare services and pay for health insurance premiums and claims, which leads us to the next targeted outcome.
Second, future veterans - and current enrollees who opt-in - should be given the option to seek private healthcare utilizing their VA funds. If veterans have service-connected injuries, they should be empowered to seek care from the provider of their choosing. Whether this choice is VHA or the private sector, it should be the veteran's, not some VHA bureaucrat.
Third, federal funding for veterans healthcare going forward should focus on those with service-connected injuries. With 59 percent of unique VHA enrollees receiving care for non-service-connected injuries, the current system can't keep up with the demand. Not all injuries or disability ratings received following military service are service-connected. The future VHA should focus in on core competencies such as, TBI, PTSD, amputees, and other conditions directly resulting from military service.
These proposals represent significant change to a system that some veterans know, others can't figure out, and many hope they don't ever have to encounter. None of these changes should impact current enrollees - if you're in the system, you will stay in the system. These long-overdue transformations represent the future that our nation needs in order to secure our promise to our veterans.
As a senior member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, I'm pleased to be working with Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers and others to address this national crisis. Acknowledging the problem while doing nothing significant to eliminate it must stop. Incremental change is not good enough. Problems this serious require serious solutions. The veteran, not the institution, needs to be the primary focus of our attention.