WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Sen. Bernie Sanders didn’t get everything he wanted in the recent Veterans Administration reform bill, but at a news conference Wednesday he called it “the most significant piece of VA legislation we’ve seen in many, many years.”
Seated alone at a table at the White River Junction VA hospital, Sanders, I-Vt., discussed the bipartisan bill he helped craft, which easily passed a usually divided Congress last week. President. Barack Obama is set to sign the bill into law Thursday.
The new legislation allocates nearly $17 billion over three years to improve care and decrease wait times for military veterans around the nation.
“What we want to do is within a couple of years, make sure that every veteran that comes into the VA health care system is getting not only quality care, but they are getting timely care,” Sanders said. “If there is anything this country must stand for, it is caring for the men and women who have sacrificed so much, and I intend to do everything I can to make that happen.”
Under the bill, veterans can receive care at private hospitals and clinics if they live more than 40 miles from a VA facility or if they cannot be seen within 30 days. The bill appropriates $10 billion in federal dollars to cover the cost of private care, and $5 billion for VA hospitals to hire additional doctors and staff. Another $1.3 billion allows the VA to lease space at 27 facilities in 18 states and Puerto Rico.
Sanders also detailed some of the finer points of the legislation. The bill includes provisions to provide college debt forgiveness to doctors and nurses who are hired at the VA and provides residency slots for recent graduates. It allows spouses of veterans who die in combat to access higher education through the GI bill and improves care for those who have survived sexual assault or sexual abuse while in the military. The legislation also allows for increased accountability in the “ossified bureaucracy” of the VA, improving communication between hospitals and the federal government and allowing government officials to hold VA leaders accountable for falsified data, he said.
The legislation comes in the wake of a national VA scandal this spring, in which hospitals across the country were found with extensive wait lists and inaccurate reporting systems. Last week, the Senate approved new VA Secretary Robert McDonald, replacing Eric Shinseki, who resigned in May.
After the federal government conducted reviews of VA hospitals nationwide, the White River Junction facility earned comparatively high marks from investigators, who reported that the hospital sees 98 percent of its patients within 30 days. The national average is 96 percent.
Because the legislation is still pending, White River Junction VA officials would not comment on the bill or its effect on the Vermont facility. Sanders said that because the 40-mile radius also applies to VA clinics, of which there are five around the state, he suspected that few Vermonters would be eligible to seek private care.
Sanders, chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, assembled the compromise legislation with former POW Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee of Veteran Affairs.
If he’d had it his way, Sanders said he would have allocated more money for the hiring of nurses and doctors, and added dental care to the list of benefits veterans receive, among other changes.
“It is compromise legislation that I would not have written if I had the option of writing it alone,” he said. “But that’s what compromise is about. And in a dysfunctional Congress where very, very little is getting done, I’m proud to say our legislation passed the House with an overwhelming vote and that was the case in the Senate.”
The VA sees 6.5 million veterans a year, a number up 1.5 million from four years ago. More military personnel from recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an aging veteran population, have increased the strain on the VA system, Sanders said.
“The cost of war is much deeper, much more significant, than most people understand,” Sanders said. Nevertheless, he added, “this is a significant step forward in addressing the needs of the veteran communities across America.”
Sanders declined to comment on whether he had decided to launch a run for president in 2016.
