Putting a Stop to Mismanagement at the VA

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, in 2014, Congress passed legislation with broad bipartisan support to improve access to and the quality of care for veterans in response to the nationwide scandal over manipulated wait times at the VA.

The Veterans' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act created a 3-year program to allow veterans to seek care from private providers if they live too far from a VA facility or cannot otherwise get an appointment within 14 days.

It also gave the VA Secretary the authority to fire senior executives for poor performance and required a top-to-bottom study of the entire Department to be completed within 1 year of enactment.

When government failure is exposed and legislation aimed at restoring accountability is enacted, it makes sense that action would be swift and immediate, people would be fired, and wrongs would begin to be made right. Unfortunately, that has not been the case at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

While there are as many as 1,000 employees that could potentially face disciplinary actions, the VA has punished a total of eight for involvement in the scandal. We continue to hear about unacceptable patient wait times, unanswered benefit inquiries, patient safety concerns, medical malpractice, flagrant mismanagement, infighting, corruption, and years of construction delays that total millions of dollars.

Frustration, anger, outrage, Mr. Speaker, these are just a few of the words that describe how I and other Americans felt when we read these latest stories about problems within the Department of Veterans Affairs. The continued ineptitude at the highest levels of the Department of Veterans Affairs is simply unacceptable. It is past time to put an end to this agencywide pattern of mismanagement.

Last month, the House continued its efforts to fulfill the commitment we have made to those who have served by approving several pieces of legislation to further improve accountability at the VA.

We also passed legislation to increase access to education programs for veterans and to encourage small businesses to hire them. While it will never be enough, this legislation is a positive step forward in meeting our responsibility to America's veterans.

However, Congress cannot transform the VA alone. It is the President's responsibility to ensure changes are made within the agency and that employees are held accountable for their actions. Unfortunately, that is not happening.

Every day, we hear only more stories about further misdeeds. President Obama must commit to reforming the VA with more than just lip service. America's veterans deserve a meaningful, decisive plan to right the many wrongs.

As a country, we are uniquely blessed. We live in a nation where each of us has the possibility of nearly limitless fulfillment and prosperity in the world's finest democracy. That unparalleled freedom and opportunity has been made available to us because of the profound sacrifices of those who have fought for and defended our Nation.

America's veterans deserve better than the inexcusable misconduct and neglect that we have seen over the last few years at the VA. It is critically important that we provide high-quality, timely care for those who have sacrificed so much to our country.

Republicans are committed to that principle and to the veterans of this country.

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