ICYMI: Sen. Cruz and Mark Lucas Op-Ed in The Houston Chronicle: ‘Congress Must Expand Health Care Choices For Veterans’
‘Veterans should be able to access state-of-the-art care at any time, close to home with the benefits they've earned.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and the Executive Director of Concerned Veterans for America Mark Lucas authored the following op-ed in the Houston Chronicle on the critical need for the VA to expand health care options for Veterans by empowering them to choose when and where they seek care:
Read the op-ed in its entirety here and below:
Cruz, Lucas: Congress must expand health care choices for veterans
Houston Chronicle
Sen. Ted Cruz and Mark Lucas
October 5, 2017
This summer, at a veterans' town hall in Houston, a woman named Linda shared her husband's story. He had passed away 13 months before, following years of cardiac problems that Linda said were not adequately treated by his U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs health care providers. Linda told us, "his physician refused to fill one of his cardiac prescriptions and he was dead on the bathroom floor six days later." She went on to explain how, over the past several years, she felt the VA had repeatedly failed her husband.
Linda's husband stepped forward when our nation called, sacrificing to defend our freedoms. But when he needed care, his country failed him. Lamentably, Linda is now left with anger, frustration and grief. That's the exact opposite of how the VA should work, but we are committed to changing it.
There are two powerful reforms that can turn the tide at the VA and provide positive impact: increasing accountability and giving our veterans more choice and control over the health care benefits they've earned.
Congress has already made real progress on the first reform. With broad, bipartisan support, the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017 sailed through Congress and was signed into law by President Donald Trump on June 23.
Unlike previous legislative "fixes" designed to improve the VA, this law has real teeth. It gives VA Secretary David Shulkin greater authority to get rid of unsatisfactory employees and reduces the time it takes to do so. Even better, these former employees will no longer be paid with taxpayer dollars as they undergo the termination process. The measure also allows the secretary to recoup bonuses awarded to employees who engaged in misconduct, affording greater protections to whistleblowers who expose wrongdoing.
Unfortunately, the current Veteran Choice Program, passed in the midst of the Phoenix waitlist scandal, where veterans died waiting for care, was poorly implemented and fails to deliver the real choice its creators envisioned. Most glaringly, the "40-mile, 30-day rule" requires veterans to receive care at a VA facility if that care can be delivered within 40 miles of their home and in under 30 days - even if a local clinic can provide better care more quickly.
Congress must build on the momentum of the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act by modernizing the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), fixing the Choice Program's shortcomings and expanding veteran health care choices.
Additionally, bringing the VHA's information technology into the 21st Century is another common-sense step to improving the VA's delivery of care in a more organized, timely manner. Sen. Cruz has sponsored a bill to address this issue by requiring the appointment of a chief information officer at the VHA, equipped to implement and manage a state-of-the-art IT system fully integrated with VHA clinics and medical centers. This straightforward, simple solution will improve health care outcomes and help remedy the long wait times that have compromised the health and safety of our veterans.
To expand health care options, the VA must also empower veterans to choose when and where to seek care. This will then allow for veterans, like Linda's husband, to easily go elsewhere when their needs aren't being met.
As Concerned Veterans for America outlined in its bipartisan report, Fixing Veterans Health Care Taskforce, a government-chartered nonprofit or accountable care organization should administer the VA's current provider system and allow for the creation of a veteran’s insurance program to offer veterans the ability to access care in the private sector with their VA benefits in a way similar to how most federal employees get coverage through the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program.
With a robust choice program and updated IT infrastructure, the VHA could then refocus on what it does best and what it was originally intended to do: "to care for him who shall have borne the battle" and tend to veterans with service-connected disabilities.
Veterans should be able to access state-of-the-art care at any time, close to home with the benefits they've earned. And it is our hope that by bringing accountability to the VA and empowering veterans with health care choice, no veteran will ever have to go through what Linda and her husband experienced.
Cruz represents Texas in the U.S. Senate. Lucas is the executive director of Concerned Veterans for America.
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