On Thursday, at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, of which Isakson is the Chairman, Isakson praised the VA’s decision to expand the Veterans Choice Program, a method for veterans to receive care outside of the VA. The VA has also decided to merge the seven non-VA health care programs into the Veterans Choice Program. Senator Johnny Isakson (R- GA) urged the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to focus the upcoming 2017 budget on effective programs to ensure timely care and combat the “culture of corruption.”
“I’m very encouraged that [the VA has] embraced a program to merge all non-VA care programs into one streamlined Choice Program to see to it that health care outside of the VA is delivered correctly and appropriately,” said Isakson.
However, Isakson remains concerned about accountability at the VA. Isakson asked VA Secretary Robert McDonald about any plans to address the broken system of accountability.
“My goal is to see to it that by the end March we have an accountability bill for the VA employees that’s right for the veterans and right for those employees. We are looking to the future to ensure that if we have problems… we have a defensible accountability system within the department to correct a wrong and make sure it does not happen again,” said Isakson.
Isakson specifically cited two recent cases of Veterans’ Administration executives who embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from the VA, were then demoted but then later reinstated after the Merit Systems Protection Board overturned their demotions. Said Isakson, “We want… to build a platform that’s good for the employees, good for middle management, good for the VA, but most importantly, good for the veterans themselves so they know they’re getting quality services and quality accountability,” continued Isakson. “Accountability is the single most important thing we must accomplish in my judgment within this committee and the VA itself.”
Isakson noted the two cases of executive embezzling but the list of VA corruption and no accountability is nearly endless. Some highlights (or lowlights):
The following cases resulted in reprimands or “brief suspensions” and all occurred at the Martinsburg Medical Center:
- Some employees were having sex on facility grounds;
- One employee was found sleeping on the job beneath a blank in a patient room;
- Another employee investigated for being high on cocaine on the job; and,
- Another employee was arrested for heroin distribution off-the-job but allowed to remain at work.
This case comes from Albany, New York:
- Linda Weiss, formerly the director at the VA medical center in Albany, she was eventually fired by the VA. In their case against Weiss, the VA said she was aware of a nursing assistant abusing patients but failed to remove the employee from patient care in a timely manner. Again, the Merit Systems Protection Board swooped in to assist a troubled VA worker. The judge from the MSPB ordered the VA to reinstate Weiss. In a show of defiance, VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson vowed to ignore the ruling. The case is ongoing.
None of those cases address the report from the VA Inspector General that came out last September. The IG report indicated that 307,000 veterans may have died waiting for care. Records were so spotty that the IG indicted in the report that it is possible the number is even higher.
