Making Continuing Appropriations During a Government Shutdown

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, as the son of an Air Force master sergeant and a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I take very seriously my responsibility to represent the interests of those who have served our country in uniform. When it comes to our Nation's veterans, their commitment to country is without question, and our country's commitment to them should be the same.

Put simply, our veterans deserve better. That is why I am pleased to see that we have come together to address this crisis in the Senate. These men and women have served and sacrificed on behalf of a grateful nation. We need to ensure that they are getting the high-quality services they have earned. Our veterans deserve a system that proves their care is our top priority.

Unfortunately, the VA is struggling to meet the health demands for our veterans. The VA inspector general is currently investigating misconduct throughout the VA health system. In order to ensure accountability, we have to give the VA the ability to fire and demote senior executive service employees who are responsible for these types of abuses.

Under current law, senior VA employees are nearly untouchable. That means the very people responsible for hiding the true extent of wait times, for instance, and other abuses cannot be fired. That is incredible when you think about it.

We cannot tolerate bad actors who abuse their power and put our veterans in danger. That is why a key component of this bill gives the Secretary of Veterans Affairs the authority to fire or demote senior VA employees for poor performance.

Accountability is the goal here. However, that goes beyond individual employees. The Department itself needs to be held accountable for its shortcomings. So it is time we shine a light on the VA.

This bill would also establish an electronic waiting list that would be made available to veterans on the Department's Web site so everyone can see the average waiting time for an appointment at each VA medical center for specific types of care and services. New wait time goals would also be published on the Department's Web site and in the Federal Register within 90 days of the bill's enactment.

Earlier this week we saw an audit which revealed that veterans seeking care for the first time waited an average of 60 days in the Little Rock VA hospital and 52 days in the Fayetteville hospital. Clearly, these results need to be improved and indicate the failure of the VA to meet its goal of seeing new patients within 14 days.

I am committed to ensuring that the VA uses every available option it has to deliver on its mission for all veterans who have earned this care. And if it cannot, this bill gives our veterans the ability to seek that care elsewhere.

The bill we are considering today would establish a 2-year program that allows veterans who have been unable to obtain care from the VA for providing service to seek care from private providers. This option would also be provided to those who live more than 40 miles from a VA facility, including a community-based outpatient clinic. The government would be obligated to reimburse the non-VA health care provider for the services provided to the veteran.

Wait times and secret lists are not the only problem within the VA health system. We are learning now that quality-of-care issues on a range of critical care outcomes, including mortality and infection rates, are willingly being ignored by senior VA management.

We need to restore faith in the VA health care system, and that begins with accountability and following through with our promises.

The crisis surrounding the VA health care system shows an immediate need to improve timely access to medical care for our veterans. The VA needs to correct the systemic problems that are preventing our veterans from accessing the high-quality health care services offered.

I am pleased we are taking action on this important issue, and I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation before us because we need to improve the health services our veterans earned and deserve.

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