Darin Selnick wasn’t surprised last year to hear about corruption at the Veterans Health Administration — sadly, some details of the scandal were familiar territory. Selnick worked there from 2001-09 as a special assistant to three of the VA’s secretaries and headed up numerous projects and initiatives. He knew the culture well.
“I tried to fire a bad employee one time, and it was impossible,” he says. “This person was habitually late to work and rarely completed assignments on time. I had an HR background and new the appropriate process to take. But even then, I was told not to fire this person, but instead, just make the problem go away.”
In addition to a union-protected, cronyism-based network that made it virtually impossible to get fired at the VA, Selnick also heard that people “skimmed money off the top to buy boats and such,” but adds that “under the old ethical line at the VA, they would never do anything to directly harm the veterans and patient care.”
He was, therefore, “very surprised” to hear about what was uncovered in April 2014 in Phoenix, where more than 40 U.S. Armed Forces veterans died while waiting for care in the city’s local VHA facilities — a revelation followed by an internal VA report in June confirming that more than 120,000 veterans were left waiting or never got care at similar VA medical centers across the country.
“Most corruption was at the supervisor through hospital director level,” he says. “And those above them simply turned a blind eye because they knew they’d lost control.”
A retired captain in the United States Air Force who served from 1985-2005, Selnick eventually left the VA and volunteered at Concerned Veterans for America in 2012 when the organization was just getting started. CVA advocates for initiatives that support veterans and their families, as well as policies that protect national security and the freedoms the veterans fought and sacrificed to defend. Selnick now serves as CVA’s senior veterans affairs advisor and was appointed last week by Speaker of the House John Boehner to the Congressional Commission on Care, tasked with evaluating veterans’ access to healthcare throughout the VA system.
CVA’s passionate support of the Veterans Accountability Act — introduced by Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee — is a logical fit. The act, among other things, would restore the VA secretary’s ability to fire the type of employees as those responsible for last year’s VA waitlist scandal.
If there are VA employees trying to address the deep-rooted VA culture problems, they obviously need the help. The New York Times reported in April that even a year after the scandal broke, virtually no one at the VA has been fired or held accountable — save a couple of strategically timed “early retirements.”
“In the old VA playbook, people did what they wanted and then when trouble came, they closed up ranks and stopped people from talking until it went away,” says Selnick. “But that’s not going to work anymore because there is a continuous stream of whistleblowers now, and they aren’t going to stop.”
The role of the whistleblowers cannot be understated. “The whistleblowers represent the old culture. They are very brave and often suffer years of embarrassment and abuse after they talk,” he says.
In fact, Selnick says the whistleblowers have even created a “VA underground” because some supervisors still won’t let them do what’s right. “There’s an underground network of people now who help each other make sure that the vets get what they need,” he says. “These are the good people in the VA who would like to bring it back.”
Will It Pass?
CVA CEO Pete Hegseth says the Veterans Accountability Act is CVA’s top priority now. CVA and the House Committee on Veterans Affairs expect the act to pass. There is significant bipartisan support, and even union groups who initially came out against it are focusing now on certain act provisions where their pro-employee rhetoric seems to fit, such as stronger whistleblower protection for new hires still in their probationary period.
“The sad defense of the VA’s lack of accountability among some groups stands in sharp contrast to the strong support America’s leading veterans organizations have expressed for the Veterans Accountability Act and underscores the disconnect among some special interests and the veterans that the VA is charged with serving,” Miller told the Washington Examiner. “There are always going to be those who support the status quo, no matter how dysfunctional it is. But in this case, those who do so put themselves squarely on the side of the corrupt officials who created the VA scandal — and in direct opposition to the innocent veterans who have fallen victim to it.”
Miller says that the arguments against this bill — that the VA’s accountability problem doesn’t exist or that the VA already has the tools to fix it — could be “easily refuted by any high-school sophomore with access to Google and armed with the key words ‘VA Accountability.'” Ultimately, he thinks the act will be successful because it “appeals to everyone, except those opposed to accountability.”
Hegseth agrees, pointing out that very few are willing to push back publicly because the act is about veterans who are underserved and bureaucrats who can’t be fired. “When the public employees union objects, it’s more about the indignation they have that Chairman Miller is challenging the VA and the status quo — they are not debating the merits of the bill,” Hegseth says. “The only specific concern they’ve made is that the act would punish whistleblowers, which is ridiculous because the bill provides protection for whistleblowers, while the current environment does nothing to protect them.
“If they want to make it about unions, they can,” he continues, “but we’re not. We’re making it about veterans. The veterans deserve the best and the brightest working for them at the VA, and that’s not what they’re getting right now.”
“The unions will do their sad song, but it will pass,” agrees Selnick. “If the Accountability Act is signed into law, bad employees will jump ship like rats, and the good employees will be cheering it on.”
However, even with strong bipartisan support from more than 115 co-sponsors, including outspoken advocates such as Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, there’s a chance President Obama will refuse to sign it.
“It needs a very strong majority because this president has already proven he charts his own course regardless of what Congress says,” Selnick said. “Even with strong bipartisan support, we can’t be overconfident that he will sign.”
Consequently, Hegseth says CVA is in “full advocacy mode.” He hopes the act will have a hearing early summer and make it to the floor before the recess.
Is the act Enough?
Hegseth describes the Veterans Accountability Act as a “first step” toward addressing the VA’s problems. “We don’t think it’s the ultimate solution, but it’s an important interim step,” he says. He believes that “in the hands of a real reformer,” the VA can create a customer-service culture — and that’s what the veterans deserve.
“The real question is whether [Secretary of Veterans Affairs] Bob McDonald can be that reformer,” Hegseth adds. “We’ve been disappointed in his unwillingness to be as aggressive as he should be for this problem. But if the act passes and Bob McDonald decides he’s going to use it responsibly, then it can make a real difference in the service provided to veterans.”
Miller emphasizes that the purpose of the act is as “a valuable tool to help replace the department’s culture of complacency with a climate of accountability,” noting that the department has yet to deliver on its reform promises. He says the 2014 White House report on the state of the VA hit the nail on the head when it found that the department was suffering from a “corrosive culture.”
“That’s why it’s so difficult to understand why the department has done so little to remove the leaders responsible for these failures from its ranks in Phoenix and across the nation,” Miller told the Examiner. “No one thought the VA could solve its problems overnight, but the department’s dysfunction has been on display for more than a year. America’s patience is running out.”
Even though the House Committee on Veterans Affairs “is leading the way to pass legislation to address the department’s failures and improve the lives of veterans,” Miller recognizes that Congress can’t mandate moral and ethical behavior at the VA. “That’s a job for VA leaders, and it’s time for them to show us real reform instead of just telling us about it,” he says.
Selnick agrees that the Veterans Accountability Act is the start of the needed reforms, adding that so far, the VA’s response to the scandal has been “as effective as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”
He also feels that veterans should have the choice to leave the VA hospital system for medical care elsewhere. “VA employees used to think that they couldn’t lose their jobs,” Selnick says. “But if the veterans can leave, then the money can leave, too — and sadly, right now that’s the incentive for VA employees to do their jobs well.”
Carla Kalogeridis is the special reports editor for the Washington Examiner.
