VA chief defends proposal to divert funds from ‘choice card’ effort

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald on Tuesday defended a new budget proposal that would allow his agency to funnel dollars away from a program that allows veterans to seek private medical care.

“I’ve done a lot of forecasting in my life and a lot of that forecasting’s not perfect. What I was asking for in that legislation or that approach was to have flexibility,” he said during a press conference with the leaders of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs committees.

{mosads}“If we don’t get as many veterans going outside and they’re coming in, I don’t want to be short money to be able to care for those veterans,” he added.

President Obama’s fiscal 2016 budget would increase discretionary funds for the VA by almost 8 percent, allowing the agency to hire more doctors, increase construction and providing veterans greater healthcare options.

A provision in the request for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 states the president will submit legislation to “reallocate a portion of Veterans Choice Program funding to support essential investments in VA system priorities in a fiscally-responsible, budget-neutral manner.”

The program, often called the “choice card,” was the cornerstone of reform legislation Congress approved last summer to revamp the VA after a months-long scandal over patient wait times that was linked to a series of deaths.

Lawmakers allocated $10 billion for the effort, with the notion that it would allow patients who had been waiting to see a doctor to get private care faster while taking pressure off the VA’s taxed medical network.

It is unclear how many veterans have taken advantage of the private care option, even though 8.5 million cards have been issued since Nov. 1.

On Monday, VA Assistant Secretary for Management Helen Tierney said agency officials have “a strong indication that this is not their preferred choice” and “would prefer to remain in the VA” for medical care.

But the idea met immediate backlash on Capitol Hill. House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) labeled the proposal a “non-starter.”

“It was frankly my idea so it wasn’t meant to be controversial,” McDonald said.

He called the ability to access private care “a shock absorber we need and it’s also in the best interest of the veteran.”

The proposal has “nothing to do with trying to gut the choice card or anything like that,” McDonald added.

His comments did not assure Miller.

“The problem with taking money out of the choice piece of the $10 billion is the life of the program will only exist as long as the money is there,” the Florida Republican said.

Miller said that while lawmakers did not expect a “wholesale rush to leave the VA system,” the program should be reauthorized in the future.

Senate Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) said the intent of the proposal is in the “eye of the beholder” and can be viewed as gutting the choice card or giving McDonald the means to meet patient demand.

“If it’s the latter that’s great, if it’s the former we got a big problem,” Isakson said.