National Opinion: Veterans have waited long enough for health reform

Republicans in Congress are moving forward with a new bill that would enable veterans to seek medical care outside the Veterans Health Administration.

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., introduced the Veterans Health Care Freedom Act earlier this month. The measure has already attracted the support of more than a dozen GOP co-sponsors. It’s easy to see why.

The VA’s government-run health system has been an embarrassment for years. America’s former service members deserve better. At the very least, they’ve earned the right to sidestep the VA’s disastrous health bureaucracy and get the care they need on the private market.

Over the last decade or so, a steady stream of scandals has shed light on striking levels of incompetence and dishonesty in the VA health system.

In 2014, for instance, news emerged that a VA facility in Phoenix had kept a secret wait list in order to hide a massive population of patients who were waiting months for needed medical care. Workers at the facility even shredded evidence of this covert queue, which included anywhere from 1,400 to 1,600 patients. By one estimate, as many as 40 patients died while waiting for care.

The incident prompted a number of efforts to promote transparency at the VA. Yet even today, the agency continues to use duplicitous tactics to keep its shortcomings hidden. A report last year from the Office of Inspector General found that inconsistent and inaccurate wait time reporting remained widespread throughout the system, often obscuring the true extent of treatment delays.

Another scandal erupted in 2017 when the Government Accountability Office discovered multiple instances in which VA hospitals hired providers who had been disqualified from treating patients, in some cases due to lack of credentials or past misconduct.

That same year, a VA inspector general audit found that nearly one-third of calls to the agency’s suicide hotline were never answered. What made this revelation particularly appalling is the tragically high rate of suicide among former service members. In 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 17 veterans took their lives each day.

Sadly, the poor care provided by the VA shouldn’t be surprising. Long waits for subpar care — or outright denials of care — are endemic to any government-run health system.

Policies like the Veterans Health Care Freedom Act would liberate veterans from the VA’s dysfunction. The bill would create a three-year pilot program aimed at improving veterans’ ability to choose healthcare providers outside of the VA system.

The bill would also require the VA to provide clear information about the options on offer to veterans in order to help patients find appropriate, timely care. After four years, the program would become permanent.

Any reform which expands access to private care for veterans counts as an improvement over the status quo. But that’s a low hurdle to clear. And as long as the VA continues to play a central role in the health of America’s veterans, the nation will always fall short of its duties to our former service members.

The ultimate goal of any VA reform ought to be the privatization of the agency’s health system. Instead of funding a network of medical facilities that routinely neglects patients, lawmakers should subsidize veterans’ health care through a system of vouchers that could be used to purchase care on the open market.

Such an arrangement wouldn’t just provide better, more timely, more personalized care to America’s veterans. It would finally end the years-long parade of VA scandals and disappointments that continues to this day. Our veterans have waited long enough for competent health care.