february. the bill would expand access to care. it allows the va to lease 27 new health facilities in 18 states that need them. it authorized emergency funding to hire new health professionals. it offers incentives for more doctors to come work at the va to spend part of their careers there. it has a version of the house republican proposal to make it easier to fire employees at the va when they do things wrong, but it also has more protection for whistleblowers. it has a provision that republicans like that will let vets who can t get timely appointments at the va to go elsewhere for care but have the va pick up the bill. we ve learned that the senate veterans committee is scheduled to discuss the bill on thursday, with the hope of getting a vote for the overall bill sometime maybe next week. harry reid said on the senate floor today that every united states senator should vote for the veterans bill and said any republican who s criticizing the va s care but is also voting against fun
his legislation that the republicans filibustered in february. the bill woex panned access to care. it allows the va to lease 27 new health facilities in 18 states that need them. it authorized emergency funding to hire new health professionals. it offers incentives for more doctors to come work at the va to spend part of their careers here. it has a version of the house republican proposal to make it easier to fire employees at the va when they do things wrong, but it also has more protection for whistleblowers. it has a provision that republicans like that will let vets who can t get timely appointments at the va to go elsewhere for care but have the va pick up the bill. we ve learned that the senate veterans committee is scheduled to discuss the bill on thursday, with the hope of getting a vote for the overall bill sometime maybe next week. harry reid said on the senate floor today that every united states senator should vote for the veterans bill and said any republican who s criti
with the relatively small number of veterans, how in the world are you going to do wit the entire population? calling this scandal a gift from god. what s your reaction, senator? al, let me respond to this. you know, we held a hearing on this about a week and a half ago, and i asked all of the veterans organizations at the haeshgs tell me about the quality of care in the va once people get into the system. and what they said without exception and what independent survey after survey backs up is the quality of health care in the va is good to excellent. the problem that we re having is getting people into the va in a timely manner. right. the va established very aggressive goals. it may well be that with 2 million new people coming into the va in the last four years that in certain parts of the country they can t achieve those goals, we have got to help them be able to do that.
whistle-blower, sais say the differences between trained investigators from the department of justice whose job it is to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse lying to them could trigger criminal penalties. office workers who ask a few coll questions and clinic staff members who may be afraid to speak the truth. it is not surprising when you consider what a sprawling system it is. it is important to remember that when veterans can access the va in a timely manner they are generally satisfied with the care. their satisfaction rate is usually above that for private hospitals. problem is within the system. the not is not the system. as we go through this process of identifying the different hospitals where these irregularities occur, i m a little troubled by already hearing some people like kevin mccarthy making a great edict on the whole system. seeming to suggest we should slim down the v system or parts
time the va did not have the services for obstetrics and gynecology. they are mostly just for gynecological services women need. i was sent outside of the va for health care. i was able to access top-quality care that the va picked the bill up for. it is great to see that veterans are going to be able to access the same services. that being said, this shouldn t be a solution to the problem. there are obvious fixes that need to be made to make sure that veterans can access the va in a timely manner and i think we re going to be i would hope to see that those fixes are being made through a congressional legislation as well as changes in policy within the department of veterans affairs. one of the things about this though that strikes me is, the sort of top-down approach. i m not sure that that s going to work. it seems to me that the problem is really out there it is in the field. in the field. there is actually something that was written today about that actually. sam foote,