Even as President Barack Obama visited Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facilities in Phoenix and unveiled a new committee to help improve customer service, U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., wants more action from the White House in cleaning up the department and improving care for veterans.
Obama came to Phoenix on Friday with U.S. VA Secretary Robert McDonald to showcase the administrations commitment to improving the department. Phoenix was the epicenter of a scandal that rocked the VA last year as media reports emerged that veterans were on altered waiting lists as they sought medical treatment. More than 30 veterans who were on altered waiting lists in the Phoenix area died while they awaited treatment.
On Friday, Obama and McDonald announced the formation of the MyVA Advisory Committee (MVAC) which will meet during the year and make recommendations on improving service.
The success of MyVA will be veterans who are better served by VA, so the work of this committee is incredibly important, McDonald said on Friday. The collective wisdom of our committee members is invaluable and each of them understands that VA must improve customer service and focus the department on the needs of our veterans. They are dedicated to that mission and I am grateful for their principled service to our veterans.
Committee members of MVAC include Major Gen. Josue Joe Robles, the former president and CEO of the United States Automobile Association (USAA); Teresa Carlson, a vice president of Amazon Web Services; former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona; Dr. Delos Toby Cosgrove, the president and CEO of Cleveland Clinic; Chris Howard, the president of Hampden-Sydney College; and Robert Wallace, the executive director of Veterans of Foreign Wars.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz insisted on Friday the new group will be focused on improving the VAs ability to meet the needs of veterans.
The committee will advise the VA on additional ways the VA can work to improve customer service delivery and veterans outcomes, and set the course for longer-term excellence and reform, Schultz said.
Miller, the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, expressed some doubts about whether MVAC will be able to do much and said the administration needed to push for more accountability.
Anytime the president devotes his time and personal attention to the issues plaguing the Department of Veterans Affairs, its a good thing, Miller said on Friday. But Im concerned the administrations decision to convene an advisory committee composed of outside experts to help improve VA services is a duplicative step that misses the mark. The Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, which the president signed last August, already mandates two top-to-bottom reviews of VAs health care system. These reviews will be used to guide longer term efforts to reform VA into an organization truly worthy of the veterans it is charged with serving.
In the short term, however, the solution for fixing what ails the department could not be more clear, Miller added. The lack of accountability for those who caused the VA scandal is the single most important factor inhibiting VAs transformation, and nowhere is this more visible than in Phoenix. Nearly a year after the city became the epicenter of VAs problems, the department has not fired a single Phoenix VA employee for wait time manipulation. In fact, efforts to hold employees accountable in Phoenix have been repeatedly botched. To this day, key leaders tied to the scandal in Phoenix remain on the job or on paid leave, and now the department is being forced to pay back thousands in bonus money it tried to rescind from former Phoenix VA Director Sharon Helman. This dearth of accountability also exists at VA facilities across the nation, as evidenced by the fact that VA has not fired a single senior executive for wait time manipulation.
Its becoming quite evident that this administration is either unwilling or unable to take accountability at VA seriously, Miller concluded. There is no way around it: in order for VA reform to succeed, those who caused the departments massive scandal must be purged from the payroll. If that doesnt happen, it will only be a matter of time before were talking about the next VA scandal.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
