House Republicans are gearing up for a vote next week on legislation that would make it easier to fire, demote and strip bonus awards from corrupt or negligent officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The vote will come nearly three years after Congress acted to punish VA workers involved in healthcare scandal. In 2014, it was revealed that VA workers around the country were systematically cooking the books to make it look like veterans didn't have to wait very long for a medical appointment.

But three years later, the 2014 bill is a proven failure when it comes to disciplining VA employees, Just a handful were ever fired, and many were allowed to retire with full benefits, a performance record that has drawn complaints from Congress for the last two years.

More recent examples have emerged that display a lack of accountability at the VA. On Thursday, the Office of Special Counsel reported that the VA failed to hear whistleblower complaints from 2014 that "unnecessary coronary procedures" were being performed on veterans.

The physician responsible for those unnecessary procedures was never disciplined, the OSC found.

But it could be different under the Trump administration. President Trump's VA secretary, David Shulkin, wasn't the first pick of many veterans groups and whistleblowers. However, he pledged in February that he wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger on employees who need to go.

"Watch us," Shulkin told Fox News. "People who don't show up to work, who do cocaine and are watching porn at work are going to be fired, because I'm not going to tolerate it, and they're going to be out of our system."

Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., who chairs the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, is taking him up on the offer. He proposed the VA Accountability First act, which GOP leaders have scheduled for a vote next week.

"I've said time and time again that the vast majority of the employees at the VA are hardworking and have the best interests of our veterans at heart, but there are still too many bad apples within the department," Roe said when he proposed the bill in February. "Our veterans deserve better, and the VA employees who fulfill their duties deserve better."

If his bill becomes law, it would create a tough new process that would speed up the process of removing VA officials for cause, a process that now can take up to a year.

The bill's language on removing employees creates a rigid new timeline. Employees would get 10 days advance notice of the proposed disciplinary action, and a chance to respond to the decision. Five days later, the VA secretary would have to respond with a final decision.

Appeals to judges at the Merit Systems Protection Board, an agency that is designed to protect federal worker rights and that opposed the reforms in 2014, would have to lead to a decision after 45 business days.

Roe's bill would also give the VA secretary the ability to reduce the pensions of VA workers if they are convicted of a felony that influenced the way they do their job.

Money is another weapon under Roe's bill. It would let the VA recoup bonuses awards paid out to workers who are later deemed to have "engaged in poor performance or misconduct" before receiving the award.

Similarly, it would let the VA recoup relocation expenses paid to VA workers. Lawmakers for years have raised examples of bonuses and hundreds of thousands of dollars in moving expenses that were given to employees at the heart of some of the VA scandals, only to be told by the VA that there were no policies in place for taking back these perks.

These and other examples are clearly driving the bill, and allowed it to sail through Roe's committee this week by voice vote, a sign that even Democrats are in the mood to toughen the rules for a federal workers, a group they normally seek to protect.

"In the past several years, VA's arcane civil service rules have hampered the department's ability to dismiss an employee that engaged in an armed robbery; discipline a VA nurse that participated in a veteran's surgery while intoxicated; and hold employees accountable for the continued failures to manage several major construction projects, including the new hospital in Aurora, Colorado, that is now several years and a billion dollars over budget," Roe's committee said in a summary of why the bill is needed.