Whistleblower calls for VA czar in open letter to Trump

Although your public statements about supporting Veterans and whistleblowers have been encouraging, VA leadership at all levels have continued to engage in actions that continue to cause Veterans delayed access to the healthcare benefits they earned through military service.

Mr. President, it is with great disappointment that I inform your office that despite your efforts to reform VA, the agency has done little to improve its operations to enhance Veteran access to healthcare.

It is for these reasons that I ask you to consider appointing a White House czar for Veterans Affairs to assist your office with enforcing the administration’s VA reform agenda to improve access to healthcare for Veterans. Having an executive adviser with military experience will assist your administration with the following revolving Veteran healthcare concerns that have been submitted to Secretary Shulkin and VHA leadership for resolution:

1. Recently, I have been contacted by several female Marine Veterans who were stationed at Camp Lejeune. These women not only valiantly served their country, they all endured multiple miscarriages and chronic illnesses due to being exposed to known contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. Despite Republican members of Congress claiming to support a culture of life, no legislative action has been taken to prevent VA from denying these “Marine Moms” their benefits claims.

Mr. President, most Americans are not aware that the number of children of Marines poisoned by the contaminants at Camp Lejeune from 1953 to 1987 was so high that the local cemetery near the base has a section called “Babyland”.

Please also see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2326780/Camp-Lejeune-water-supply-Marine-daughter-Mary-Blakely-seeks-dignity-Devil-Dog-pups.html.

Mr. President, these “Marine Moms” have contacted VA Secretary David Shulkin, their respective members of Congress and the White House Veterans’ hotline about VA denying their benefits relating to the poisons that made them infertile and ultimately ended the lives of their children. Unfortunately, President Trump, their requests to VA leadership for their health benefits has been ignored. VA has done nothing to make these heroic servicewomen whole despite receiving billions of funds from Congress to address Camp Lejeune contamination claims in 2012.

2. VA senior leadership also received numerous calls and letters from Veterans and their respective members of Congress about billing errors caused by system errors due to the failed implementation of the Veteran Financial Assessment (VFA) process enacted in 2014.

Recently the VHA Member Services office in Atlanta had to re-examine over 6,000 Veteran income verification cases, because Veterans were over billed for medical copays ranging from $200 to $3,000. About 1,000 Veterans will receive fraudulent bills from VA a month due to this known system error.

Although Veterans have contacted the Secretary and others in VA leadership to resolve this issue, the only action initiated by the Secretary was to instruct my office to remove the poster regarding sending Veterans to collection agencies who can’t pay their bills from the VA health benefits website:

3. As you are aware the VA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently issued a report about the agency not having any consistent policy for enrolling Veterans into VA healthcare at its 160 plus medical facilities. The report was one of several reports from the OIG, the Government Accountability Office and Congressional oversight committees identifying deficiencies with VA’s enrollment operations.

This is a critical issue, Mr. President, because Veterans can’t get medical care until after they enroll in VA healthcare. By placing 120,000 to 150,000 veteran healthcare applications each year in a pending backlog the VA is essentially illegally rationing health care benefits to Veterans.

The managers responsible for the current backlog admitted to the VA OIG that they did not even bother to review regulations governing processing Veteran applications prior to attempting to purge over 500,000 applications for VA healthcare.

Despite your office signing legislation to hold corrupt VA officials accountable and protect whistleblowers, no disciplinary action has been taken to punish any of the VA officials responsible for these obstructions to Veterans accessing healthcare benefits. All of the responsible members of management were either allowed to keep their recent promotions or were transferred to more prestigious offices within VA at the same pay grade with less responsibilities.

Mr. President, the level of accountability is so bad under the current leadership that VA managers openly brag about how they can use the direct hire process intended for disabled Veterans to create $100,000+ noncompetitive work from home jobs to their friends:

4. VA leadership continues to promote fake news stories about reducing wait times for Veteran healthcare appointments, while internal documents prove Veterans continue to wait months for healthcare after you authorized billions in additional funds for the VA Choice program.

According to an article in the Washington Examiner, “VA documents also show there are currently 184,520 Veterans across the nation waiting longer than 30 days for an appointment and more than 45,000 new Veteran patients waiting more than 90 days. Internal VA documents also indicate 479,239 Veterans nationwide are waiting for physician requested follow-up appointments over 30 days for the period July to September 2017.”

5. VA is in desperate need of a leader who can assert moral authority. Senior managers at VA do not believe Secretary Shulkin is going to do anything to hold them accountable for their actions. A Secretary under investigation by the VA OIG for committing what would be a terminal offense for a regular employee is not in a position to pass moral judgement over other corrupt managers.

This is why despite being provided volumes of documentation about VHA Member Services managers engaging in inappropriate activity, he has decided to take no action against them. Mr. President, one manager who engaged in a discussion via government email about killing hippies and placing them in the ovens like Hitler did Jews in Nazi Germany was reassigned to a GS-15 position in the VA Office of Mental Health.

Please also see http://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/docs-va-worker-mentioned-putting-people-into-the-ovens-in-exchange-with-natl director/591625508.

In contrast, whistleblowers who contact the Office of Whistleblower Protection and Accountability are routinely threatened and/ or fired by the current VA leadership for raising concerns about Veterans being denied their healthcare benefits.

Several months ago, I had the pleasure of being invited to Mar-a- Lago to participate in a discussion about reforming the Department of Veterans Affairs. Although you were unable to attend due to matters of state, all of the attendees expressed their support for your campaign promise that you will be the President that will finally holds corrupt VA officials accountable for denying our nation’s Veterans access to healthcare.

President Trump, based on the above justifications, I would strongly encourage you to appoint a White House czar for Veterans Affairs to liaise on your behalf with Veteran Service Organizations, VA OIG and Government Accountability Office officials to get factual information about Veteran healthcare needs that is independent of VA leaders who are responsible for the current state of the agency.

Thank you for your time and consideration!

Respectfully:

Scott Davis, VA Whistleblower

Scott Davis is a VA Whistleblower who testified before Congress on July 08, 2014 about backlog of Veteran applications for healthcare benefits.