Issue Position: Veterans

Issue Position

Serving Those Who Served Us

Although it has improved, the health care provided by Veterans Affairs continues to struggle to provide appropriate health care to our veterans. The President of the United States receives his medical care at Walter Reed Hospital in this Congressional District. Everyone who risks their life for us in the military should receive medical care of the same quality and attention that the President receives. Talk to almost any veteran and you'll hear stories about the failures of Congress and the VA's failure to live up to our commitment to those who've served our country. Veterans often wait months in bureaucratic lines for health care, face higher unemployment rates than the civilian population, and have a 50% higher rate of suicide than civilians. We need a complete overhaul of veterans' services, and we need it now.

I support increased funding where it can help. In particular, we should do more to cover expenses for veterans to see private health care providers when VA services are inaccessible or wait times are too long. We should also expand the Transition Assistance Program, which helps veterans transition to civilian jobs.

But we also can do more to improve efficiency. I'm not one to make a blanket statement that "government ought to be run like a business" like some other businessmen who go into politics. But I think that the VA is a good example of a struggling government agency where we could apply some lessons from the business world. For example, right now our veterans have to sign up on several different websites with different logins and passwords to take full advantage of the services that the VA offers them. This is ridiculous. If Google can make all of its services available through a single portal with one login, there's absolutely no reason the VA can't do it too.

Veterans are often not aware of certain benefits, such as federal hiring preferences, that are offered to them when they transition to the civilian workforce. I know from personal experience that any good company makes their employees fully aware of their benefits so they can take advantage of them. Our veterans deserve no less.

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