EDITORIAL: VA’s so-called reforms highlight need to privatize

If there were official rankings of the most dysfunctional agencies within our federal government, the Department of Veterans Affairs would hold the top spot.

Charged with preserving the health and welfare of our veterans, the VA repeatedly has disgraced them through a system-wide culture of indifference, incompetence, neglect and malfeasance. In addition to subjecting veterans to routine delays in processing their disability and compensation claims, the agency also has made countless veterans wait months (and months) for appointments while also covering up those excessive wait times. The VA has a horrible record of building hospitals, too, with the average VA construction project typically running an average of 35 months late and $360 million over budget. The new VA medical center in North Las Vegas exceeded both those benchmarks.

In 2014, a VA "reform" bill was passed with bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Barack Obama. This was supposed to make it easier for VA administrators to fire employees who contribute to the agency's dysfunction, and while the agency has gotten rid of more than 1,700 problem employees since July 2014, it still has a lot of work to do.

For example, when the director of the VA's Reno regional benefits office was placed on administrative leave due to his office's dismally slow and poor service, he wasn't fired, but rather given a year off with pay and a specially created, work-from-home consulting position.

More recently, an investigation by an NBC affiliate in Washington, D.C., found that VA employees at medical centers in the nation's capital, Maryland and West Virginia weren't fired despite sleeping in hospital patient rooms or having sex while on the job. One employee was investigated for being high on cocaine while on duty, while another was arrested for distributing heroin while off the job, but allowed to return to work.

Elsewhere, two senior executives were demoted — but not fired — in November after being accused of forcing lower-ranking regional managers to accept job transfers they didn't want. The pair then took over the vacant positions themselves, keeping their pay the same but cutting back on their responsibilities. Not surprisingly, Congress wants to know how this was allowed to happen and why the employees simply weren't let go.

The more these and other examples of horrible conduct and poor performance at the VA come to light, the more obvious it becomes that there must be many, many more. No one could possibly believe that investigators have uncovered every instance of taxpayer abuse. Congress passed a law explicitly to make it easier for the VA to fire people, and it wasn't enough. We'll say it again: Privatize the agency's functions and medical centers already.