Following numerous accounts of data manipulation that led to patient harm and wrongful death at Department of Veteran Affairs hospitals across the nation, Congressman Don Young supported the passage of H.R. 4031, the Department of Veterans Management Accountability Act of 2014, on May 21, 2014 to ensure these types of disastrous failures never occur again and those responsible are held accountable.
The Department of Veterans’ Affairs Inspector General has subsequently identified 26 VA locations nationwide to investigate for the falsification of records and delays in treatment, including the Phoenix VA hospital where more than 40 veterans were initially reported to have died due to mismanagement.
As a veteran himself, Congressman Young is deeply troubled to see the reports of negligence and incompetence in VA hospitals across the country that led to the preventable death of our veterans. He believes we owe our veterans the world, but at the very least a VA that fulfills this nation’s most basic promise for proper and timely healthcare. This is an essential first step in strengthening the VA and providing peace of mind to the brave men and women who have dutifully served this country. H.R. 4031 works to ensure the VA’s own bureaucratic vulnerabilities, which make it nearly impossible to be held accountable for their actions, do not impede on its abilities to carry out its basic responsibilities. Congressman Young will not sit idle as our veterans are disgraced by their own federal government, and he will work to his fullest ability to ensure these heartbreaking failures never occur again.
Congressman Young on the passage of the H.R. 4031, the Department of Veterans Management Accountability Act (click here to watch).
On June 9, 2014, the same day the Department of Veterans Affairs released an audit of VA medical facilities across the nation, including the Veterans Healthcare System in Anchorage, Congressman Young and the House of Representatives passed bipartisan legislation, H.R. 2072, the Demanding Accountability for Veterans Act, aimed at increasing accountability within the Department of Veterans Affairs by requiring the VA Inspector General (IG) to notify Congress and the Secretary of the VA when the agency fails to appropriately respond to IG requests.
While Congressman Young was pleased to see that the Anchorage VA has made substantial improvements to its operations and is now considered one of the top performing in the nation, he believes it is imperative to view the failures the Department of Veterans Affairs as a whole. Congressman Young says the entire Department of Veterans Affairs is in crisis and profound changes are necessary in order to ensure our nation’s veterans receive adequate and timely care as they were promised. If even one veteran is overlooked or neglected, that is considered a failure in the eyes of Congressman Young. He says these brave men and women have honorably served their nation and it is unacceptable that we would allow government bureaucracy and complete lack of accountability, which stems from the highest levels, to continue any longer.
Congressman Young has also worked tirelessly to reduce the Veterans’ Affairs backlog. He supported the passage of H.R. 4486, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, bipartisan legislation to provide $344 million for the modernization of VA electronic health records and $173 million for a paperless processing system to help the disability backlog. He believes Congress must work to defeat the backlog plaguing our Veterans’ Affairs system, which in many cases exceeds hundreds of days.