It has been a long slog to fix the Veterans Affairs healthcare system. These problems have spanned multiple administrations and proved vexing. The failure of the VA can be traced to two key points: 1.) Leadership failure; the lack of accountability and lack of interest in helping its customers, and 2.) Failure to adopt, leverage, and employ available healthcare management tools.
Why has it taken so long? Answer: The incentives were wrong. The VA would fail, Congress would throw money at the VA — funding the very failure and incentivizing failure, creating a cycle of ever worsening failure. This will now stop.
Why are we seeing progress now? A key to effective leadership is creating conditions for success. A leader can’t be everywhere, but he can give the tools and guidance to his deputies to push forward his guidance and obtain success. That is what we now see here – President Trump has over the past 18 months created conditions for real change and real success. The right people with the right tools and the freedom to make changes. Effective leadership makes all the difference.
The focus of the VA healthcare effort must be the point of healthcare delivery – that moment in time a veteran needs the care. Delay and failure to provide timely access to care has resulted in death. Death due to delay is not acceptable. We have technology that can help the VA effectively provide choice, access, and timely, effective care.
VA leadership in the past failed to focus on its customer’s needs – the veterans and their well-being. And the VA system has resisted adopting current technology to increase capacity and give veterans more choice and more timely care – the VA Mission Act is designed to create effective fixes for these past areas of failure.
President Trump has now signed the VA Mission Act into law – and here’s what it does:
- It strengthens the VA’s ability to provide timely and quality care to VA patients and gives veterans real choice over their healthcare.
- It overhauls and enhances the Choice Program which was created in 2014. It consolidates community care programs to cut down on waste and provide expanded, timely access to care.
- The bill provides funding for the Choice Program which is expected to run out by the end of this month. The Mission Act ensures there is no disruption in care for veterans.
- A critical feature of the Mission Act allows for the VA and Congress to review the department’s assets and ensure resources are not duplicative or wasted on underutilized facilities – therefore maximizing capacity and access for veterans.
In real terms, this bill does real good. House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., said, “This is a once in a lifetime, transformational bill.” Long overdue effective oversight and the ability to quickly identify points of failure will result in effective management of the enterprise.
Further, and of critical importance, this bill will help transform the VA into the modern, high performance healthcare system that our veterans deserve. It will allow for the adoption of critical technologies that will enhance access and allow for effective management of point of access care and ensure quality of care to be equal or superior to that of the open healthcare market.
The system will be focused on “the point of delivery” for each veteran, to empower veterans and improve their quality of life. We also expect dramatic positive change with the tools to properly oversee and hold accountable VA leadership.
We are finally on the path of positive change for veterans – another promise made and kept by President Trump.
Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer is a retired Defense Department Senior Intelligence Operations Officer; Vice President for Operations of the London Center for Policy Research, a New York City-based national security think tank; and is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Operation DARK HEART: Spycraft and Special Operations on the Frontlines of Afghanistan. He is an adviser to President Trump’s 2020 campaign.
