[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 21460-21461]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        SUPPORTING OUR VETERANS

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I think it is important that we pause for 
a moment at the end of 2015, look back upon the past 12 months and, in 
particular, look at the Veterans Administration and the veterans who 
have served our country, looking at the problems that we have solved 
and the things we have done to better improve those services.
  When the year dawned, we had a scandal in Arizona at a Phoenix 
hospital. We had bonuses being paid to employees who had not performed. 
We had medical services that weren't available to veterans who had 
earned them and deserved them. As a Senate, we came together in the 
Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, which I chair. We had a bipartisan 
effort to see to it we addressed those problems.
  So for just a second I want everyone to pause and realize what we 
have done bipartisanly and collectively for those who have served our 
country and the veterans today.
  No. 1, by the end of January, we had passed the Clay Hunt Suicide 
Prevention for American Veterans Act to deal with the growing problem 
of suicide with our veterans. It is already working with more 
psychiatric help available to our veterans, quicker responses for those 
who seek mental help, better diagnosis of PTSD and TBI, and a reduction 
in the rate of the suicides that take place in the veterans community. 
That was affirmative action. It passed 99 to 0--Republicans and 
Democrats--in the Senate of the United States.
  We took the veterans choice bill, which had passed in August of last 
year, and made it work better for the veterans of our country. In the 
first 9 months of this year, the Veterans Administration fulfilled 7.5 
million more individual appointments for veterans and benefits than 
they had in the preceding year, all because we made the private sector 
a part of the VA and allowed veterans to go to the doctor of their 
choice under certain qualified situations. We made access easier, we 
made access better, and because of that, we made health care better.
  Then we addressed the Denver crisis, and this is the most important 
thing of all. In January we got this little note from the VA that they 
had a $1.3 billion cost overrun on a $1.7 billion hospital, a 328-
percent increase in cost with no promise that it would go down.
  Ranking Member Blumenthal, myself, and the Colorado delegation flew 
to Denver and brought in the contractors and the VA. We made 
significant changes. First we took the VA out of the construction 
business. They had proven they didn't deserve the ability to manage 
that much money or to build things. Their job was to deliver health 
care.
  We took the construction and put it in the hands of the Corps of 
Engineers, where construction and engineering was responsible. We told 
the VA: You may have a $1.385 billion cost overrun, but if you are 
going to pay for it, we are not going to borrow from China. You are 
going to find it internally in the $71 billion budget of the Veterans 
Administration. And they did.
  By unanimous consent this Senate and the House of Representatives 
approved the completion of that hospital, the funding of the shortfall, 
and the management takeover by the Corps of Engineers. Today it is on 
progress to be there for the veterans of the Midwest and the West in 
Denver, CO.
  Then we dealt with many other programs, such as homelessness and 
caregiver benefits to our veterans' caregivers, to see to it we have 
the very best care possible available.
  Then we changed the paradigm. The VA had so many acting appointees 
and so many unfilled positions that they couldn't function as well as 
they should. So we went in, and we approved Dr. David Shulkin to be the 
under secretary for medicine. We took LaVerne Council and approved her 
to be the head of information technology. We took former Congressman 
Michael Michaud and made him the Assistant Secretary of Labor for 
Veterans' Employment and Training. We put highly qualified people who 
knew what they were doing in positions where we had vacancies. We are 
already seeing a benefit in health delivery services, planning for IT 
coordination, and, hopefully, interoperability between the Department 
of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense in terms of medical 
records, which is so important.
  But we also did something else. We said we are no longer going to 
tolerate scandals in the VA or look the other way, and we are not going 
to pay rewards and bonuses to people who aren't doing the job. As you 
heard earlier today with Senator Cassidy from Louisiana and Senator 
Ayotte from New Hampshire, with the help of Senator Sherrod Brown of 
Ohio, we are going to pass legislation that is going to hold VA 
employees accountable, have a record if they are not performing, and in 
the future prevent any Veterans Administration employee who is not 
doing a job from getting a bonus for a job that is not well done. That 
is the way it works in the private sector. It ought to be the way it 
works in the government.
  Then we took another problem. We took the problem of the scandal in 
the VA relocation benefits, which cost hundreds of thousands of lost 
revenue to

[[Page 21461]]

the VA--funds that were given to VA people for transferring, some of 
them within the same geographic area where they originally were 
working. We told Secretary McDonald: You need to go in there, and you 
need to clean this thing up. To his credit, the Secretary did, and to 
his credit, the former brigadier general who was the head of that 
department retired. He resigned from the VA rather than face the music 
in terms of the investigation.
  But we took affirmative action to see to it we would have no more 
scandals. We want zero tolerance for poor performance, and we want to 
reward good performance, but that is the way it needs to be. It is very 
important also to understand that we have goals for the future. We are 
going to continue as a committee with the VA leadership on a quarterly 
basis. Senator Blumenthal and I go to meet with the leadership of the 
VA to see what they are doing and to share with them the frustration we 
have in the House and the Senate about things that aren't going right, 
but to share with them the joy we have with the things that they are 
doing to improve.
  Then we have set goals for next year, a full implementation of the 
Veterans Choice Program and a consolidation of all veterans' benefits 
and VA benefits to see to it that veterans get timely appointments and 
good-quality services from the physicians in the VA or physicians in 
their communities.
  We are going to improve the experience of our servicemembers in 
transitioning from Active Duty to Veterans Affairs. Quite frankly, 
today that is the biggest problem we have in the country. Active-Duty 
servicemembers who leave service and go to veteran status fall into a 
black hole. There is no interoperability of VA and DOD health care 
records and electronic records. There is no transition in the handoff. 
We are going to see that change.
  We are going to improve the experience of women veterans, including 
protecting victims of military sexual trauma.
  We are going to combat veteran homelessness and meet the goal of the 
President to get it to zero. We have already reduced it by a third.
  We are going to ensure access to mental health so no veteran who 
finds himself in trouble doesn't have immediate access to counsel. On 
that point, I commend the Veterans Administration for the hotline. The 
suicide prevention hotline that they established has helped to save 
lives in this country this year, and we are going to continue to see to 
it that we have more and more access for our veterans.
  Simply put, we are going to make the Veterans Administration work for 
the veterans and work for the American people. We are going to have 
accountability of the employees. We are going to reward good behavior, 
and we are not going to accept bad behavior. In the end, we are going 
to take the veteran of America, who served his or her country, and make 
sure that they get every benefit that is promised to them and that it 
is delivered in a high-quality fashion. We are going to do it working 
together as Republicans and Democrats and as Members of the Senate to 
do so.
  As we close this year, I wish to pause and thank the Members of the 
Senate for their unanimous bipartisan support for the significant 
changes we have made to address the problems of the Veterans 
Administration and to remember this season of the year in Christmas the 
great gift we have had to all of us of our veterans who have served us, 
many of whom have sacrificed and some of whom have died to see that 
America remains the strongest, most peaceful, and freest country on the 
face of this Earth.
  With that, I pause and yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Senator from Oklahoma.

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