Key senator wants a ‘more responsive’ veterans administration.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs says he wants the Veterans Administration health care system to be “more responsive,” especially in rural areas, but declined to endorse an accountability bill proposed by a top GOP presidential candidate. He also ruled out changing the law to permit VA doctors to dispense or prescribe medical marijuana in states where it’s legal.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), in an interview broadcast on Yahoo News radio on SiriusXM 124 Wednesday, said that in the wake of recent reports of inefficient and inadequate health care for veterans, he wants to work with Democrats and the administration to improve accountability at the vast agency. Congress has made progress toward correcting some of the worst flaws, including an unprecedented expansion in mental health services, but more needs to be done, he said.

A bill from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the VA Accountability Act, was blocked on the floor last month by Democrats concerned that it would give VA managers too much latitude in dismissing staff. Supporters said the act would improve service, but opponents pointed out that the bill might, paradoxically, cost many veterans their jobs. The VA hires more veterans than any other civilian agency: Between 30 and 40 percent of its employees have served in the military.

When asked, Isakson said that while VA employees need to be held more accountable, there should not be a “meat-ax approach” to dealing with workers and making the agency function better.

“We need to have more accountability within the agency, where everybody is accountable for the job they were hired to do,” Isakson said. He suggested establishing retraining programs for employees found to be “lacking.”

“Everybody who works at the VA, whether they’re veterans or not, should be held accountable for the services they provide to other veterans, and we need to make sure that happens. If you do that in a reasonable and enforceable way, you get people’s attention in a positive way — you get better results,” Isakson continued. “We’re not talking about a meat-ax approach where you go in and fire a bunch of people and make examples of them. We’re talking about having specific goals of achievement for everybody in their job and specific measurements of those achievements to make sure the people who are achieving are rewarded and those who aren’t are retrained and moved forward.”

When pressed on whether such an effort would be outside or separate from the Rubio legislation, Isakson said diplomatically that any legislation considered would be “in the spirit” of the Rubio bill, “but not quite the same thing.”

Perhaps that is because most of the progress that’s been made since scandal broke out at the VA in 2014 has been bipartisan. The White House dispatched one of its most respected top aides, Rob Nabors, to the VA, where he quickly rose to chief of staff. According to Isakson, this move demonstrated President Obama’s commitment to fixing some of the systemic issues dogging the agency.

One of the most pressing needs, Isakson said, is expanding quality coverage to veterans living in more remote areas, even as they have more choice in how they receive health care than ever before. The VA is allowing more veterans to receive health care outside the system when necessary, but striking a balance between good service and costs can be tricky.

“I want to see a more responsive VA, particularly in terms of facilities. We’ve got some need for facilities in some rural parts of [states], opportunities we have to make VA [care] more accessible to rural veterans, which is probably our single biggest problem,” Isakson said.

In terms of actual care provided, one of the more controversial issues Congress has debated this year is whether doctors at VA hospitals in states where medical marijuana is legal should be able to discuss it as a treatment option with veterans. Because the hospitals are operated by the federal government, which still considers marijuana illegal, VA doctors cannot prescribe, dispense or recommend it to patients.

Isakson does not believe that should change.

“The stated policy of the United States government is that medical marijuana is not something that we support or promote … and therefore the Veterans Administration should not as well,” Isakson said.