VA Law

From the Stars and Stripes:
"Obama signs landmark VA reform law"

President Barack Obama on Thursday signed into law a $16.3 billion plan to overhaul the troubled nationwide health care system run by the Department of Veterans Affairs. In a speech at Fort Belvoir, Va., Obama said the law is an important step toward reforming a dysfunctional agency that has outraged Americans, but cautioned that much more work is needed to fix chronically long wait times for veteran patients and systemic wrongdoing among staff. “This will not and cannot be the end of our effort,” Obama said. “Implementing this bill will take time. It will take focus from all of us.” The massive reform package has been a rare instance of bipartisanship in Washington and won overwhelming support in both chambers of Congress in late July, just three months after delays in veteran health care exploded into a national scandal. It dramatically expands veteran access to private care, adds medical staff and facilities, and streamlines the firing of VA executives found to be incompetent or guilty of manipulating patient data. “It’s a good deal,” Obama said. “This bill covers a lot of ground.” The law will pay private health care providers $10 billion to treat vets who cannot get VA appointments within 30 days of requests or who live more than 40 miles from a VA health care facility. Another $5 billion will go to hiring new VA doctors — including specialty care physicians — nurses, mental health professionals and other medical staff. The remaining $1.27 billion would primarily pay for 27 new medical centers in 18 states and Puerto Rico. Obama received a loud round of applause when he mentioned a measure in the law aimed at cracking down on management misconduct. The law allows new VA Secretary Robert McDonald to fire senior executives at will and those federal employees now have just seven days to appeal a termination and an administrative judge would be required to rule on the appeal within three weeks. In the past, the process typically took months. Comprehensive reviews of the entire VA health care system including its antiquated electronic appointment system, a $360 million annual cap on employee bonuses, and more funding for sexual assault treatment programs are also tucked into the law. The overhaul will ring up about $10 billion in new deficit spending during the coming decade but only attracted the scattered opposition of a handful of fiscal hawks in Congress. About $4.46 billion of the bill’s total $16.3 billion price tag will be covered by cuts from elsewhere in the existing VA budget. Obama said the law follows on the heels of a renewed VA effort to fix its health care system, which serves about 200,000 patients a day and is the largest of its kind in the United States.

 ^ Glad this is now law and hopefully we can start helping the veterans and their families like we should have been doing all along. ^

http://www.stripes.com/obama-signs-landmark-va-reform-law-1.297191