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“Even VA privatizers agree that the MISSION Act is likely to stumble.”
VHPI’s Suzanne Gordon writes in The American Prospect:
A potentially costly and harmful experiment in veterans’ health care is scheduled to begin eight weeks from now. The Veterans Community Care Program (VCCP), created under the VA MISSION Act of 2018, will channel millions of the nation’s most vulnerable veterans to private-sector doctors and hospitals. VA leadership is determined to launch the program on June 6, in spite of federal reports and Capitol Hill testimony by both friends and foes of privatization that say it is not ready for rollout.
This was made abundantly clear at an April 10 Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs hearing. Chairman Johnny Isakson (R-GA), a leading proponent of outsourcing veterans’ care from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to private doctors and hospitals, predicted, “We’re going to stumble before we walk.” It was a staggering admission: VA leaders and Republicans like Isakson seem willing to send waves of patients into the private sector where the care is likely to cause harm.
Passed last June, with bipartisan support and only 83 congressional dissenters, the VA MISSION Act of 2018 was intended to remedy the problems inherent in the 2014 Veterans Choice Program. Sharon Silas, acting director of Health Care for the Government Accountability Office, catalogued a long list of Choice’s failings at the hearing. The program was hastily implemented, poorly coordinated, and riddled with cost overruns. Meanwhile, third-party administrators who mishandled reimbursement claims and overbilled for their services were greatly enriched as Choice delivered more than $19 billion to private-sector interests. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie, according to the GAO, has neglected to correct many of these administrative problems.
These and many other stumbles have led some veterans’ service organizations, which originally supported the VCCP legislation, to express alarm. The VHA “is not yet prepared, nor likely to be prepared within eight weeks, to implement significantly more complex and expansive access standards without risking serious disruption to veterans’ healthcare,” warned Adrian Atizado, deputy national legislative director of the Disabled American Veterans, at the Senate Committee hearing. He questioned whether the VHA can “safely coordinate the clinical care of the increased number of veterans who use the VCCP networks.” Read the full article here.
“VA privatization latest battleground for congressional rising stars”
Leo Shane III reports at Military Times:
A pair of prominent freshman lawmakers offered sharply different views about the future of the Department of Veterans Affairs health care this week, bringing the ongoing debate over fears of department privatization to the next generation of elected leaders.
The duo — Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Republican Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw — have both built national followings since their elections last fall, and recently have sparred directly over social media concerning rhetoric surrounding Muslims and the Sept. 11 attacks.
But this week marked each legislator’s first focused entry into VA policy discussions, and their comments suggested both will make those issues a key focus in months to come — with very different positions on the issue. Read more at Military Times.
AOC ‘breaks with Democratic Party orthodoxy and decries’ VA privatization
Jasper Craven reports on a National Nurses United event where Suzanne Gordon was on a panel alongside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other veterans’ health care leaders. Read it at The Nation:
On Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez broke from party orthodoxy. She offered a full-throated defense of the agency and made clear whom lawmakers are really serving with the new legislation: “They are trying to fix the VA for pharmaceutical companies, they are trying to fix the VA for insurance corporations and, ultimately, they are trying to fix the VA for a for-profit health-care industry that does not put people or veterans first.”
“If we really want to fix the VA so badly, let’s start hiring, and fill up some of those 49,000 [staff] vacancies,” Ocasio-Cortez continued, as nurses in scarlet scrubs and veterans roared back in agreement.
Ocasio-Cortez highlighted much of the good done by the VA, from the agency’s comprehensive screening process for war-related maladies to its holistic and coordinated approach to treatment. She protested an agency policy that severely restricts access to care for veterans with other than honorable discharges, noting that these military expulsions are often related to “a mental-health issue you generated on the job.”
She said that should Medicare for All be passed, the VA would most likely remain unchanged. While many champions of universal health-care coverage are fighting to essentially abolish private health insurance while retaining the private-hospital system, AOC said in an ideal world, the civilian health system would mirror what’s currently offered to veterans. “If you ask me, I would like VA for all,” she said to cheers. Read more at The Nation.
Coming up on Capitol Hill
House Committee on Veterans Affairs
Additional oversight for Cerner Corp. on the horizon
The troubled electronic health record project could soon have more oversight. Read more at FierceHealthcare.com:
Lawmakers have made it clear that the Department of Veterans Affairs $16 billion electronic health records project would be under close scrutiny. This week, two senators took steps to ramp up that oversight of the beleaguered IT initiative.
U.S. Senators Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) introduced this week bipartisan legislation to establish a third-party oversight committee to help monitor the implementation of the new EHR system.
The 11-member EHR advisory committee would be made up of medical professionals, IT and interoperability specialists, and veterans currently receiving care from the VA but would operate separately from the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense, according to a press release. Read the full article at FierceHealthcare.com.
Quick Clicks:
- The Cincinnati Enquirer: 60 docs and pharmacists charged in ‘largest ever’ prescription opioid bust
- Government Executive: VA whistleblower protection office accused of retaliating against whistleblowers
- Patient Engagement IT: ‘VA Reviews Veteran Mental Healthcare Access Amid Suicide Reports’
- NextGov.com: VA builds a network of physicians, surgeons and researchers to explore how 3D-printing can improve the lives of veterans
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