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| Hillary Clinton, Former US secretary of state |
"The systemic failures of the VA to uphold its core mission underscore the need for fundamental reforms and focused leadership," reads that fact sheet that describes Clinton's view. "She will have no tolerance for failure to put veterans first."
Her plan would allow some private-sector care, but not full privatization like some Republicans have called for, and would allow VA supervisors "to suspend or remove underperforming employees."
Clinton will roll out her proposal at a veterans roundtable with the Truman National Security Project, a left leaning organization focused on national security and veterans issues, at a VFW hall in Derry, New Hampshire on Tuesday.
Clinton's proposals take on an agency that an internal inspector general report found in 2014 was gripped by "systemic" issues with scheduling that caused some veterans to die while waiting for treatment. The scandal led to the resignation of then-VA secretary Eric Shinseki.
After telling MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in October that issues within the VA have "not been as widespread as it has been made out to be" -- a comment that was blasted by Republicans and Democrats -- Clinton has regularly used the word "systemic" to describe the issues within the VA.
Clinton will address VA waitlist issues when she proposes integrating Department of Defense and VA medical evaluations, allowing some "rules-based automatic adjudication" for simple applications and providing veterans with an appeals process to challenge the VA when they think their health claims are unfairly denied.
Clinton will also pledge to end the backlog of disability benefits and appeals by allowing more overtime work within the agency.
Source: Bloom Gist and Agencies
