Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Five-star veterans affairs facility draws cabinet member’s praise
FAYETTEVILLE — The U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs toured a Fayetteville bright spot in his beleaguered department Monday, on his way to meet with WalMart leaders on how to improve his agency’s logistics.
David Shulkin, Veterans Affairs secretary, visited the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks hospital and grounds in Fayetteville at the invitation of 3rd District Rep. Steve Womack, R-Rogers.
President Donald Trump picked Shulkin, with the near- unanimous support of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, to tackle chronic problems that have scandalized the department since 2013. Those scandals included veterans who died in Phoenix and elsewhere while waiting months for an appointment for treatment and led to the resignation of his predecessors in 2014.
The Ozarks system holds a five-star rating, the agency’s highest. Audits show it avoided the severe problems in providing care found elsewhere. Shulkin said one reason he toured in Fayetteville was to find out firsthand if patients agreed with that rating.
“I wanted to stop and talk to veterans, and found that they believe the care they get here is second to none,” Shulkin said at a news conference Monday morning.
Womack invited Shulkin to come to the facility shortly after the secretary’s appointment in February, the congressman said.
“I told him I also had a little five-and-dime operation in my district that knew something about logistics” that could help the department, Womack said. The tour group planned to visit with Wal-Mart experts Monday and attend a roundtable discussion with veterans at Crystal Bridges Museum of Bryan Matthews American Art in Bentonville after that, he said.
The department’s problems grew out of “decades of failure over many administrations,” Shulkin said Monday.
A priority is to get an upto-date record-keeping system to replace a 35-year-old system that now soaks up 40 percent of the department’s information technology budget just for the repairs and maintenance needed to keep it running, he said.
The department will use an “off the shelf” system already used by the Department of Defense rather than go to the expense of paying for a new development, he said.
A bill to make it easier to hire and fire department employees has passed Congress and is expected to go to the president for his signature this week, Shulkin said.
The bill goes too far, said Marilyn Parks, lobbyist for the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing about 700,000 federal employees. A bill intended to speed the removal of a few bad managers and specialists takes in virtually every employee of the department, she said, exposing them to risks of unfair allegations and abuse.
The department is 49,000 employees short of full staffing now and knowing a worker can be fired almost at will does not make it more attractive, she said.
The real source of the problems is the nation went to war after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and never expanded the department to keep pace, Parks said.
Shulkin announced a list of other reforms last month that he said the department needs.
Joe Plenzler, spokesman for the American Legion veterans group, said the group is very concerned the improvements Shulkin seeks will be partially paid for by cuts to veterans’ benefits. The president’s proposed budget for the Veterans Department would reduce or eliminate disability payments to unemployable veterans, according to recent statements by the American Legion.
“This is absolutely unacceptable to us,” Legion National Commander Charles E. Schmidt said in a recent statement. The change would cut the income of the veterans who are most in need, he said, particularly aging veterans.
Schmidt also criticized the “Choice program” to obtain veterans care in some specialties from outside clinics.
“It is a ‘ stealth’ privatization attempt which the American Legion fully opposes,” he said in his statement.
Shulkin is the first Veterans Department secretary to not be an armed services veteran himself. He is a medical doctor with experience as president of medical centers in New Jersey. He entered the department as an appointed deputy director in 2015. According to Womack, Shulkin repeatedly impressed members of Congress with his responsiveness and expertise.
Reps. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., and French Hill, R-Ark., also attended the tour. Roe, who is a doctor and a veteran, is chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Hill also has a Veterans Department hospital in his district in Little Rock.
“I could not be more pleased that Dr. Shulkin and Representatives Womack, Roe, and Hill came to Veterans Health Care System