The Patriot Post® · Congress's Veterans Affairs Band-Aid

As families mourn the loss of U.S. veterans who died while waiting for care in a scandal-ridden government Veterans Affairs – and as thousands more in our Armed Forces risk their lives around the world, no doubt wondering what kind of care they’ll receive when they come home – Congress has voted to authorize $360 million in bonuses for VA employees rather than using that money to better serve our veterans.

It’s all part of a $17 billion plan to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs announced earlier this week by House and Senate negotiators. Unfortunately, in many ways, the plan is less reform and more repeat of the status quo that favors government bureaucrats at the expense of our veterans.

Now, you’ll likely hear the spin that Congress is actually cutting VA bonuses, but the rhetoric hides some unpleasant truth. The House had, indeed, voted 421-0 last month to eliminate $400 million in bonuses to the agency. But move past that pro-veteran sound bite, toss in the Senate and that lovely word “compromise,” and you get a proposal with no real reform for the agency and $360 million in yearly bonuses back on the table.

When it comes to the accountability of VA employees, the legislation may appear to tackle this problem head-on by authorizing the VA secretary to fire or demote senior executives for “poor performance and misconduct.” Oh, but wait. Those same executives can then appeal the firing or demotion, and the case would go to the Merit System Protections Board, which would have 21 days to issue a ruling. (A firing wait list, if you will.) Unfortunately, 21 days is a kite dream as MSPB itself abides by a 120-day timeframe and still remains inundated with thousands of appeals stemming from last year’s mandatory furlough of some government employees.

Add to this the fact that the “Senior Executives Association” naturally opposes the firing provision. Apparently, the threat of immediate firing for ineptitude is appropriate for private industry but not for government employees. (This gives a whole new meaning to the idea of entitlement reform.)

To add to this problem, as many as 13,000 VA employees are being overpaid – a problem that won’t be so easy to fix.

Perhaps most pernicious, though, is the bipartisan proposal actually may encourage fraudulent reporting of VA wait-list times – the very issue that put the agency in the hot seat to begin with. CNBC reports, the proposal provides “[e]mergency funding to give veterans who can’t get a medical appointment at the VA the option to receive non-VA care.” But this care must still be coordinated through the VA, and in order to get care outside the VA network, veterans must first prove VA wait lists are too long. In other words, the emergency funding is tied to the provision of evidence that the VA is failing – hardly something the agency will want to tout, as America has already learned the hard way.

The House passed the bill 420-5 Wednesday, so it heads to the Senate for deliberation before the August recess. What large-scale opposition would there possibly be to a bill that demonstrates the persistent unwillingness among our elected officials to address our nation’s problems? Instead, they provide a Band-Aid to our veterans and a bonus to bureaucrats.

Update: The Senate passed the bill 91-3 late Thursday, sending it to Obama’s desk.