Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROUNDS. Mr. President, it is truly an honor to work with the Senator from Georgia, the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. I can tell you that on behalf of the 72,000 veterans from South Dakota, it is work that needs to be done. We appreciate the service of the chairman and the service of the ranking member in making this a bipartisan effort.

Unfortunately, many of our Nation's heroes aren't receiving the quality of health care they have been promised due to decades of mismanagement and ongoing problems with the VA. It is not acceptable, as the chairman has pointed out. In fact, of all the calls we receive in my State asking for help with Federal agencies, over half of all of those calls are coming from veterans seeking help with VA issues. These veterans in South Dakota and across the entire country continue to experience problems with health care delivery at the VA, including backlogs, long wait times, and frequent billing errors.

As we seek to address these issues within the entire VA system, accountability is as important as it has ever been. The Veterans First Act takes meaningful steps to hold the VA accountable and in turn improve the care for our veterans, which is the most important priority of all.

This legislation, the Veterans First Act, puts the needs of our veterans first by addressing the lack of accountability at the VA. Unfortunately, the administration last week announced that it would not defend a provision of the Veterans Choice Act, which was passed with strong majorities in both Chambers of Congress in 2014 and was signed by the President. In response, the VA announced last week it would no longer use its expedited removal authority to hold VA senior executives accountable, given this Justice Department decision. Regardless of the legal arguments surrounding this issue, the fact is that as a result of the VA's decision, we are now back to pre-Phoenix scandal accountability at the VA.

We owe it to our veterans to make certain they receive the best care possible and not have the agency responsible for that care refuse to remove nonperforming or even criminally acting officials from important positions, as Congress granted the VA the right to do in the Veterans Choice Act 2 years ago.

This is also important given that until recently, the VA didn't have a permanent inspector general, or IG, in the last 2 years. Inspectors general are impartial and independent units within most Federal agencies whose duty it is to provide accountability and oversight to combat waste, fraud, and abuse within the government. During that same timeframe, the VA has been plagued with some of the worst scandals and mismanagement in the agency's history, and our veterans have paid the price. Some have even died.

While I am glad that Inspector General Missal is now in office and can begin to address some of the VA's fraud and waste allegations, it is still too little too late.

That is why the bipartisan Veterans First Act is so important. Our bill will take strong, definitive, immediate steps to hold VA employees accountable for their actions.

Let me give some examples of what this bill includes. It will shorten the grievance process, making it easier to dismiss VA officials who breached the trust of the veterans they are supposed to serve. It will remove the Merit Systems Protection Board from the appeal process for senior executives, and it expedites, when necessary, the removal of any employees at the--executives and rank-and-file employees alike.

You don't have to take my word for it, and you don't have to take the word of any Senator in this body; you can simply listen to the words of Secretary McDonald himself. On Monday he stated--this is a quote from Secretary McDonald of the VA:

The answer to the whole thing in my opinion is the Veterans First Act. The provisions that Senator Isakson and Senator Blumenthal have put in the Veterans First Act we all support. VA supports them. The Republican party in the Senate supports them. The Democratic party in the Senate supports them. We really think that this is the ultimate answer. I'm hoping the Veterans First Act will get passed soon.

This bill also includes a number of provisions that I have offered to improve accountability and care at the VA, such as the Veterans Choice Equal Cost for Care Act, which amends the Choice Act by eliminating the secondary payer clause to make certain veterans do not pay more for private care under the Choice Act than they would have if they were seen at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs facility.

The key to that is right now we have veterans going in and getting care at a private facility and assuming that the VA is going to pick up the cost for them, and then they find out that under the current plan where the VA is a secondary payer only, they have to pick up their own deductibles, which they are not being reimbursed for, because the VA is secondary, not primary. That is wrong. That was not the intent of the Choice Act in the first place. The Veterans First Act takes care of that issue and will take care of a huge amount of the challenges we have right now with the Choice Act.

Also, the Veterans Health Administration Spending and Transparency Oversight Act is legislation that requires the Veterans Health Administration, or VHA, to produce an annual report to Congress detailing the cost of the health care that it provides to our veterans. Having accurate cost accounting by the VHA will help Congress identify legislation options aimed at better health care for our Nation's veterans.

I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the Veterans First Act, and I thank the members of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, especially Chairman Isakson, Ranking Member Blumenthal, and all the Members here today for working together to produce meaningful bipartisan reforms at the VA.

Our Nation's veterans, who are now defending and have selflessly defended and protected our freedoms, deserve that same commitment from the country they so proudly fought for and defended.

With that, Mr. President, I would like to yield back to the chairman.

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