Congress Watch: Congress Should Fix the VA, Not Help Themselves

Members of Congress are particularly adept at two things:  business as usual and over-reaching in response to scandal.  If the past is an accurate indicator of things to come, the scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs will provide an excellent example of Congressional over-reach.

Most Americans were outraged more than a month ago when it was alleged that up to 40 Veterans died while waiting for months to see a doctor at a VA facility in Phoenix, AZ.  The Department generally requires that its hospitals see patients within two to four weeks of the time an appointment is requested.  Many of the 40 Veterans who died, were placed on a secret waiting list in a scheme to cover up the actual time it took to get an appointment for medical care.  Over time, more reports about waiting times and secret lists came to light, and it became clear that the situation in Phoenix was not an isolated incident.

As is typical, soon after the initial reports, the finger pointing began.  The left insists the problem was President Bush’s fault.  The right says that President Obama has known about the problems since 2008 and allowed the condition to fester.  Senate Republicans said that the Veterans Affairs Committee did not hold enough oversight hearings.  And, for his part, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, blamed it all on the Koch brothers.

This week, Chairman Sanders released an outline of “emergency” legislation that he says is required to fix the situation and make sure our nation’s Veterans receive the care they need.  The outline starts off promising enough.  Among other things, the bill will include provisions to “upgrade the VA’s antiquated scheduling system,” shorten wait times for Veterans, and provide the Secretary the authority to fire incompetent senior executives.

Unfortunately, the outline also makes clear that Chairman Sanders understood what President Obama’s former Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, meant when he said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”  The bill promises to provide in-state tuition assistance for Post-9/11 Veterans, to restore full cost of living adjustments (COLA) for all military retirees, and a host of other items.  These may be excellent ideas, but the fact is that they have absolutely no bearing on whether Veterans will receive the medical care and treatment they need and to which they are entitled.

There are things Congress can do immediately to get Veterans off of VA waiting lists and into doctors’ offices.  But, Congress should resist the urge to use this crisis as another excuse to tack a wish list onto a solution.  Congress owes our nation’s veterans more than the typical political response to scandal.