by Sarah Schauerte
Last week, the acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Sloan Gibson, told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that the VA needs $17.6 billion to fix its healthcare system. According to Gibson, the money would help the VA decrease appointment times and allow it to hire new doctors.
That’s the gist of the request. No permanent reforms proposed. No house cleaning of administrators who profited from making fake reports of prompt patient services. No vows to improve transparency.
While some members of the Senate committee were on board with the request – given the obvious evidence that more money is needed for these purposes – others weren’t impressed. For example, Senator Mike Johanns of Nebraska, questioned whether VA care would improve if it received additional funding.
“This sounds so similar to what we’ve heard over the years,” Johanns said, adding that the committee had routinely met previous VA requests for additional funding. “If you can’t clean up your act, then guess what? You lose out,” he continued. “I don’t think you need more billions and billions of dollars.”
Gibson said the VA would use the $17.6 billion to hire 10,000 new clinical staff members, including 1,500 doctors. It would allocate $6 billion for infrastructure improvements, including building eight new medical facilities and leasing 77 more around the country.
The money would come on top of funds included in a separate bipartisan reform bill that both houses of Congress passed in June. That legislation is in a conference committee to work out differences.
Obviously, additional funds to provide for improved medical services will positively impact veterans in the VA’s healthcare system. But the scary question is, shouldn’t the VA already know how much it needs in order to provide adequate services to its veterans? And now it’s saying that it needs another $17.6 billion to do the job right?
Another point is where the priorities should be. The focus should be on the funds and measures needed for a systemic reform of the VA. Without substantive change, Congress cannot expect the VA healthcare system or its bureaucracy to act any differently than it has in the past. It needs reform to promote accountability and transparency.
We’ll see where this leads us. The VA healthcare system can’t be fixed in a few weeks, or months, or probably even in a few years. But one thing’s for certain – to do so, it needs a surgery, not a Band-Aid.
Did you find this article informative? If so, sign up for Sarah Schauerte’s blog on veterans issues at: https://legalmeetspractical.com. Sarah Schauerte is a veterans lawyer and advocate whose practice focuses on veteran small business issues.
