Chairman Sanders Lays Out Legislative Action Plan for Veterans
|
BURLINGTON, Vt., June 1 – Senate Veterans’ Affairs
Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today outlined a comprehensive
legislative package to address “reprehensible” behavior by VA officials
and to correct underlying problems in access to medical care.
“There must be a culture of honesty and accountability
within the VA and people who have lied or manipulated data must be
punished. But we also have to get to the root causes of the problems
that have been exposed. The simple truth is that with 2 million more
veterans coming into the system in recent years there are many
facilities within the VA that do not have the doctors, nurses and other
personnel that they need to provide quality care in a timely way.”
Sanders said a Thursday hearing of the veterans committee will consider the Restoring Veterans’ Trust Act of 2014.
The measure then could be put on a fast track for consideration by the
full Senate. It would give the VA authority to immediately remove senior
executives based on poor job performance while preventing wholesale
political firings. It would provide veterans who can’t get timely
appointments with VA doctors the option of going to community health
centers, military hospitals or private doctors. It would authorize VA to
lease 27 new health facilities in 18 states. It would authorize
emergency funding to hire new doctors, nurses and other providers in
order to address system-wide health care provider shortages and to take
other steps necessary to ensure timely access to care. To address
primary care doctor shortage for the long-term, the bill would authorize
the National Health Service Corps to award scholarships to medical
school students and to forgive college loans for doctors and nurses who
go to work at the VA.
Altogether, the bill would provide education, retirement
security and other benefits for millions of veterans and their families.
Virtually all of the provisions already have been approved by the
Senate committee, many of them by unanimous votes, during previous
legislative markup sessions.
Sanders said the need for congressional action was
underscored last Wednesday when the VA’s independent Office of Inspector
General found that officials had lied about wait times for appointments
at the Phoenix VA and other medical facilities. A separate audit
delivered to President Barack Obama on Friday disclosed attempts by VA
employees at two-thirds of VA hospitals and clinics to cover up delays
in providing patient care.
Other provisions in Sanders’ legislative package would:
• Upgrade VA’s antiquated scheduling systems.
• Require President Obama to establish a commission on VA
health care access and recommend, within 90 days, actions to bolster
capacity.
• Extend comprehensive services and benefits to the most
severely injured pre-9/11 veterans; standardize the process for sending
patients to community health centers, military hospitals or other health
care providers; and extend from five to 10 years access to VA health
care for all recently-separated veterans.
• Provide help for veterans who suffered significant
spinal cord, reproductive and urinary tract injuries and who now want to
have children.
• Bolster the VA’s ongoing effort to eliminate shrinking
but still unacceptable backlogs in processing claims for disability
benefits.
• Make certain that all veterans get in-state tuition rates for college costs covered by the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
• Improve the delivery of care and benefits to veterans who experienced sexual trauma while in the military.
• Remove the VA from annual budget battles by adopting
so-called “advance appropriations” to protect veterans in case of a
government shutdown.
• Restore a 1 percent cut in retirement cost-of-living adjustments that Congress enacted for current military service members.
To read a summary of the complete bill, click here.
|
veterans
