The American Federation of Government Employees, representing around 700,000 government workers, has just blasted Rep. Phil Roe’s “VA Mission Act.” (Roe represents Tennessee’s First District and Chairs the House Veterans Affairs Committee).
Under the title “Lawmakers Sabotage VA, Then Vote to Privatize It” the AFGE surgically dismantles and exposes Rep. Roe’s legislation as a betrayal of veterans in favor of corporate interests. The AFGE minces no words when it concludes:
For years, special interest groups have tried to dismantle the VA so they could make a buck off the backs of veterans, and now they’re closer than ever.
As the AFGE sees it, by failing to fill nearly 49,000 nationwide vacancies at VA hospitals and facilities, the agency administration has manufactured a staffing crisis that privatization advocates can then cite as a reason to outsource even more VA services. As the AFGE explains:
That’s what happened May 16 when politicians led by House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Phil Roe voted to pass another bill that would make permanent the VA privatization program, kicking the door wide open for wholesale privatization of the VA. Make no mistake, these people voted yes to send our wounded warriors to unaccountable, inferior, more expensive, for-profit providers that are not specialized in veterans health care.
The AFGE reports that the VA’s experiment with private-sector outsourcing has been “plagued” with problems, and the organization has called upon Congress to investigate major contractors who reportedly have been tagged by the VA watchdog for nearly $90 million in fraud.
The “real mission” of the VA Mission Act, according to AFGE, is to divert money to private corporations at the expense of the current integrity and future survival of the VA as it was originally designed. The AFGE points to particularly objectionable features of the legislation, including:
- Authorizing the outsourcing of up to 36 medical service categories, including mental health care and spinal cord injury care. The bill makes it easier for privatizers to cut up vital functions of the VA and auction them off to the private sector. Once a function is gone, it’s gone.
- Allowing a private corporate-style commission handpicked by the President unfettered power to decide which VA facilities to close, which VA facilities to repair, and which new facilities to build.
- Taking away the power of members of Congress and the constituents who elect them to save the VA hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities in their communities.
- Nowhere in the bill’s over 200 pages is there any mandate to hire more frontline employees to provide care and services to our veterans.
If the AFGE is right, then Rep. Roe’s hypocrisy is of epic proportions, because the foregoing elements of the VA Mission Act sound a lot like the Independent Payment Advisory Board (“IPAB”) portion of the Affordable Care Act that Roe repeatedly condemned and voted to repeal.
Here’s what Roe said about the IPAB in a newsletter explaining his position to constituents. Compare it to the quote above from AFGE describing what Roe himself has done to the VA with his “MIssion Act”:
The IPAB is a panel comprised of 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. The proposals put forward by the IPAB would be considered using fast-track procedures and, absent a two-thirds majority in the Senate, Congress can only modify the type of cuts to Medicare, not the amount. If Congress fails to act on the board’s recommendations, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services is given the power to implement the cuts unilaterally. Worse still, the IPAB is exempt from any judicial or administrative review. No matter your views on Obamacare, we should all be able to agree that giving a panel of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, or a cabinet secretary in any administration, this much power is a bad idea.
The VA Mission Act is not Roe’s first betrayal of people he is supposed to help. As explained here, he also recently supported a plan to impose a new special fee on veterans’ mortgages to pay for VA benefits. Just like the recipients of Social Security (another program being eyed for cuts) paid for those benefits with years of payroll taxes, veterans already paid for their VA benefits with their service. They should not have to pay again in the form of Rep. Roe’s new tax on veterans.
East Tennessee needs a new Congressman who can tell the difference between meaningful action and empty rhetoric, who doesn’t confuse liarship with leadership, and whose values consistently place people first.
If you would like to help Rep. Roe not be a liar and keep his own original term limit promise, you can make your views count by sharing and following this ongoing blog and by supporting Dr. Marty Olsen, a refreshing Democratic alternative, here: Responsible Change.
Oh yeah, and please remember to vote!