Opposing view: Expand private health care options for veterans
Four years ago, Americans were shocked by the scandal at the Phoenix VA hospital, where VA employees were letting veterans wait months to receive critical health care. For some patients, this wasn’t just an inconvenience. It was fatal.
America understood that our veterans were not receiving the timely health care they had earned. So, Congress quickly passed legislation that allowed some veterans to see private doctors. The ensuing “choice” program offered limited opportunities for some veterans to access private care if they were unable to get timely treatment at the VA.
It was an important reform, but it wasn’t enough.
The prevailing problem plaguing VA health care is not leadership, but structural. In other words, veterans will never thrive with top-down, one-size-fitsall health care. Outgoing Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin is the latest in a long line of wellmeaning leaders who have done their best to wrangle an inflexible, govern- ment-run health care system, only to fail.
Shulkin pledged to reform the department further and started strong in 2017, implementing a new law that made it easier to fire bureaucrats who were failing our veterans. Unfortunately, he was ultimately undone by his own ethical issues and his inability to work with the rest of administration.
For the VA to truly deliver, we must expand health care choice for veterans and ensure that they can access the best possible care. In many cases, it will be receiving prosthetic or psychiatric care at their local VA. But in other cases, it may be getting treatment at a private provider that can offer faster and more convenient care. The next VA secretary should urgently work with Congress to get these reforms implemented.
Even at a time when it seems like we can’t agree on anything, providing veterans with the care they need should bring everyone together.
Dan Caldwell is executive director of Concerned Veterans for America and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War.