VA accountability law: Concrete actions to fix problems

One of the strongest proponents of the newly enacted Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Law is Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson who has been pushing for VA reform since he took his Senate seat in 2005.

Isakson has been chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs since January 2015, after having worked long and hard as a member to reform the VA and improve care for veterans. In taking on the chairmanship, he said: “There’s no greater calling for us in Congress than to bring value back to the VA and our veterans.” He looked forward “to leading the charge in the Senate to implement solutions to the VA’s problems and to help instill a system of success and accountability for the future.”

That has moved closer to reality with the new law signed by President Trump last week, aiming to increase accountability in the VA and improve services to veterans.

Its enactment came three years after the worst of the VA scandals broke in 2014 at the agency’s Phoenix medical center, where as many as 40 veterans died while awaiting treatment. It was a horror story of records being changed and a secret waiting list being kept before the scandal was exposed by a whistleblower. That came in the wake of the disclosure in 2013 that 900,000 disability benefits claims were backlogged at the VA with veterans forced to wait an average of 315 days to get the benefits they deserved.

One of the major parts of the new legislation is the creation of the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection within the VA, which was first proposed by Isakson in the Veterans First Act in the last session of Congress. As the senator explained, the new bill increases the VA’s authority to remove employees at all levels, shortens the removal process and prevents an employee from staying on the payroll while appealing dismissal. It facilitates dismissal of poor-performing senior executives and shifts appeals directly to the VA secretary under an expedited timeline.

And, to guard against other blatant abuses of the past, the law prohibits bonuses for employees found guilty of wrongdoing. Further, the VA is required to evaluate its supervisors based on the protection of whistleblowers, while managers must deal with poor performance and misconduct by employees.

President Trump kept his campaign promise in signing the new law, recalling “the nightmare that veterans suffered during the VA scandals.” He said, “What happened was a national disgrace.” He also pointed out that since taking office he has taken a series of actions to make sure that veterans “get worldclass care and the kind of care that they’ve been promised by so many different people for so many years.”

The steps include the launching of a new website that publishes wait times at every VA hospital, same-day mental health services at all 168 VA medical centers and the solving of “a problem that has plagued our government for decades — “seamlessly transferring veterans’ medical records from the Department of Defense” to the VA. Of all the actions that should have been done ages ago, that was the most obvious but it never got done until Trump took office.

Another important step was the president’s signing the Veterans Choice Improvement Act earlier this year “so that more veterans can see the doctor of their choice.” Trump noted that so far this year under the Choice program, “veterans have received nearly double the number of approvals to see the doctor of their choosing.”

At the bill signing, Trump said: “That’s what today is all about: keeping our promises to those who have kept us free, kept us happy, saved our lives and saved our families. So I just want to thank you, our incredible veterans. We stand with you. We salute you. And with this new legislation, we strive to better support and serve you every single day.”

Finally, it’s not just words but concrete actions to provide the care our veterans deserve. DON McKEE Rick McKee, The Augusta Chronicle