Protect Montana heroes from VA bureaucracy
This week marks the three-year anniversary of the earth-shattering scandal involving veteran health care at the Phoenix VA. The deaths of dozens of veterans and needless suffering of thousands more proved the life-threatening dangers of government bureaucracy run amok.
Yet for many of Montana’s 99,646 veterans, very little has changed. Many find their experience is more like a visit to the Motor Vehicles Division, when what they deserve is health care provided by compassionate, highly disciplined, and ethical public servants.
The only good news is new federal legislation — the VA Accountability First Act of 2017—could finally cure many of the VA’s ills. Having already passed the U.S. House of Representatives with bipartisan support, it’s now up to U.S. Sen. Jon Tester to help pass this reform into law.
That a legislative fix is necessary is beyond dispute. Three years after the Phoenix VA scandal, there’s still essentially zero accountability for bad employees. Several senior employees directly implicated in Phoenix held on to their jobs for more than 700 days before they were finally fired. In all, fewer than 10 people involved in this scandal lost their jobs as a result.
Employees who endanger their patients’ health and well-being shouldn’t be allowed to keep their jobs for any amount of time. Nor should those who abuse taxpayer dollars, which are properly spent on the resources needed to provide veterans’ care.
Unfortunately, the VA fails to discipline employees who engage in this kind of behavior. Worse yet, the department’s upper management often tries to silence those who come forward with evidence of wrongdoing, rather than correct it.
When Brandon Coleman — an addiction therapist at the Phoenix VA — voiced concerns about a string of veteran suicides in 2015, he was harassed and intimidated by VA employees. Coworkers even tampered with his own personal medical files to try and discredit him. Despite an internal VA report that found Coleman was indeed retaliated against, those involved were allowed to retire with full benefits or received a slap on the wrist.
Fixing this mess starts with accountability — or in the VA’s case, addressing the lack of it. That’s where the VA Accountability First Act of 2017 comes in. As the second largest government bureaucracy with over 360,000 employees, it would amount to the most significant civil service reform in decades.
Under this legislation, VA employees would still enjoy the protections most federal workers have — they could only be disciplined with cause. But if there is cause, the entire firing process — including appeals — would be limited to no more than 77 days. That’s compared to the years it can take today.
Other changes would breathe fresh air into the VA. The legislation prevents the VA from rewarding failure, allowing the VA secretary to rescind bonuses given to employees who commit wrongdoing. It also prevents employees who are scheduled to be fired from collecting paid leave and raking in taxpayer dollars — a problem that has plagued the VA in recent years.
The legislation has already earned the support of most major veteran service organizations and is building momentum in Washington. VA Secretary Dr. David Shulkin also supports the bill, saying, “without legislative changes, the VA will continue to be forced to delay immediate actions to remove employees from federal service.”
The only opponents of the legislation are government labor unions. They prefer the status quo of effectively zero accountability for misconduct, preserving job security for their members — even if those employees threaten veterans’ well-being.
That is simply wrong — and it must change. It’s now up to Sen. Jon Tester to decide where he stands: with unions and the VA bureaucracy, or with 99,646 Montana veterans who need care. The choice should be an easy one.
Dan Caldwell, of Fairfax, Virginia, is the policy director of Concerned Veterans for America.