Fix VA now, Boehner urges Obama

Legislation gives agency chief more power, lets vets get help elsewhere

Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, chats with Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., as they take an escalator Wednesday to the Senate chamber. Sanders is negotiating an accord to expand authority to fire Veterans Affairs Department officials.
Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, chats with Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., as they take an escalator Wednesday to the Senate chamber. Sanders is negotiating an accord to expand authority to fire Veterans Affairs Department officials.

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John Boehner on Wednesday demanded that President Barack Obama do more to fix what Boehner called "the abject failure" of the Department of Veterans Affairs to meet the needs of the country's soldiers returning from battles abroad.

In a letter signed by the Republican House leadership, Boehner called on the president to support legislation offered by his members that would provide the secretary of Veterans Affairs more authority to fire people at the agency and would give veterans who face delays in seeing doctors the ability to temporarily go elsewhere.

"Are you willing to do whatever it takes, pending the results of the investigations that are underway, to ensure our veterans get the care we owe them, even if it means shaking up the current bureaucracy and rethinking the entire system?" the lawmakers asked in the letter.

The letter concludes: "The VA scandal is a national disgrace, and Americans are eager to know the extent of your willingness to personally take action in order to make things right for those who have served."

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, postponed a hearing that had been set for today on the House legislation to try to get consideration of a similar bill on the Senate floor.

Sanders is negotiating with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to reach a bipartisan accord that would expand the authority to fire or demote senior Department of Veterans Affairs officials with some protections not in the House bill. It also would allow more veterans access to alternative care facilities and authorize up to 27 new veterans facilities to deal with the backlog of veterans awaiting medical care.

Sanders had said Wednesday afternoon he was "cautiously optimistic" that a vote could be held today before about a dozen senators fly to France for Friday's 70th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Europe in World War II.

But a spokesman for Sanders said a few hours later that talks would continue today, making a vote before the senators leave unlikely.

Obama has been on the defensive for weeks as reports surfaced that officials at veterans hospitals across the country had been manipulating data on how long veterans wait for appointments by using secret waiting lists. The president accepted the resignation of Eric Shinseki, the VA secretary, but Boehner and the other lawmakers said that is not enough.

"We do not believe this addresses the fundamental problem -- which is the abject failure of the department to meet the needs of our veterans," they wrote in the letter, which was delivered to the White House on Wednesday morning.

U.S. lawmakers, who have compiled one of their least-productive legislative sessions while struggling to put aside partisan differences, must work together to eliminate the long delays at many VA hospitals, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller said.

"This is one where we cannot go to our corners and hold fast in a way that harms the veterans," Miller, a Florida Republican, said after meeting with Sanders. He said Sanders showed flexibility in their discussion.

The Democratic and Republican measures would both make it easier for the Veterans Affairs secretary to dismiss incompetent senior officials.

Sanders' bill would allow a three-week appeal process after the official is removed. That's needed as a matter of fairness and to avoid litigation that would delay efforts to make the agency more accountable, he said.

Miller called the appeal process a "stumbling block" in negotiations.

Sanders' proposal also would give more veterans access to approved non-VA facilities, such as those run by the Department of Defense and two private providers, TriWest and Health Net Inc. The private companies have VA contracts valued at $4.4 billion and $5.1 billion, respectively, through 2018.

The VA spent $4.8 billion, or 10 percent of its health budget, on outside providers in 2013.

McCain's plan would give veterans a "choice" card allowing them to receive care from non-VA providers under certain circumstances.

Information for this article was contributed by Michael D. Shear of The New York Times; by James Rowley, Michael C. Bender and Derek Wallbank of Bloomberg News; and by Matthew Daly, Alan Fram and Erica Werner of The Associated Press.

A Section on 06/05/2014

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