Not only do we need the current
whistleblower protection program, we need to strengthen it. Especially when it
comes to the Department of Veterans Affairs, whistleblowing is a must; given
the disastrous shape this Agency is in. What is being reported is just the tip
of a very large iceberg, which needs to be blown to “smithereens”, so the VA
can be restructured to meet the needs of those it claims to serve. The article,
below just came across my News Ticker....
Military.com
Military.com | Sep 08,
2016 | by J. David Cox Sr.
J. David Cox Sr. is national
president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents
670,000 federal and District of Columbia government employees nationwide,
including 220,000 in the Department of Veterans Affairs. The views expressed in
this commentary are his.
I've dealt with extremist
politicians like Rep. Jeff Miller long enough not to take his insults
personally ("Opinion: Union Bosses, VA Bosses Rigging
System for Failure," Sept. 5).
But after spending 20 years caring
for veterans as a psychiatric nurse, and the past decade representing more than
220,000 VA employees across the country, here's one thing I take very
personally: our nation's sacred obligation to serve the women and men who have
worn the uniform.
Our members take that obligation
seriously, too. That's why they were the first to come forward to blow the whistle on
VA managers and executives who were falsifying appointment records to hide
excessive wait times for veterans seeking care.
Rather than proposing real solutions
to the problem of veterans not getting timely access to care, Rep. Miller chose
to exploit the wait list scandal to serve his own political agenda. Miller has
introduced a bill that would gut the workforce protections that
empowered whistleblowers to come forward in the first place.
Miller's bill is part of a concerted effort by
the congressman to strip all federal employees -- not just those at the VA --
of their due process rights, allowing employees to be demoted or fired at will
without any protections from partisanship or favoritism.
He also has waged an intense
campaign to implement the extreme proposal by the Concerned Veterans for America
to privatize the VA and dismantle the patient-centered system that veterans have endorsed time
and time again.
Miller's obsession with gutting employees'
rights and stripping the VA for parts has distracted the House Committee on
Veterans Affairs, which he chairs, from focusing on staffing shortages and
underfunding issues that, if addressed, stand to make a tremendous difference
for the veterans he claims to serve.
Tell me, Congressman Miller, how is
silencing health care providers and shutting down VA hospitals going to improve
veterans' access to health care?
A far better VA reform bill has the
bipartisan support of Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs Chair Johnny
Isakson of Georgia and ranking member Richard Blumenthal.
Even though we do not agree with
provisions attacking the due process rights of VA executives, we support
his Veterans First Act because
it will provide real accountability at the VA without hanging an ax over the
heads of honest employees who choose to blow the whistle on mismanagement.
The Veterans First Act is far from a
boondoggle for labor unions, as Rep. Miller suggests -- which is why many
employee groups still oppose it. Yet we believe that our veterans deserve
quality health care and that they indeed must come first, which this bill would
accomplish by empowering VA employees to hold bad managers and opportunist
politicians in check.
With its vast network of more than
160 medical centers and 1,000 community-based outpatient clinics across the
country, the VA provides its 5.8 million veteran patients the best health care
our nation has to offer.
If
Congressman Miller would focus on providing the VA with the resources it needs
to serve more veterans, instead of scapegoating the very employees who deliver
that care, our nation's war heroes would reap the benefits they so justly
deserve.
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