My must read of the day is "Veterans Affairs tries to move forward," in the Hill:
The Department of Veterans Affairs is moving on from one of the most serious scandals in its history.
On the eve of Veterans Day, the agency announced a reorganization intended to improve customer service to the hundreds of thousands of veterans who depend on VA hospitals and clinics for healthcare. […]
To critics of the VA, the restructuring and shortened wait times represent progress. But they are by no means satisfied.
Republican lawmakers and some organizations representing veterans are particularly critical that McDonald has not done more to fire VA employees who critics say were instrumental in a culture of corruption that underserved veterans. […]
McDonald has argued that his hands are tied in moving more quickly to fire employees given laws protecting civil servants, even with a new law approved over the summer that gives him additional leeway to dismiss executives and managers, pending an appeals process.
On Sunday VA Secretary Robert McDonald sat down for an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes to go over the types of changes the agency is, or is in the process of, implementing in response to the VA scandal and subsequent reform legislation that was enacted in August.
As he described how he was cleaning up the VA, McDonald said in part, "it's going to take time. Because every adverse outcome that gets amplified by the media doesn't help me."
CBS’s Scott Pelley cut him off, and noted that the agency had a "bad reputation."
"I do," McDonald said, "But we're changing it."
That exchange struck me as odd, and I think it’s important to consider when discussing the latest reform effort.
It was as if McDonald thought the media should cut him a break and just trust what he was doing. It also verbalized a sentiment I get each time I try to write a story that has to do with the scandal.
I’ve attempted to speak with the VA for various pieces, in recent weeks, that follow up on aspects of the scandal. Despite having the direct phone number for a press officer and the congressional liaison, I almost never get a returned call or a returned email.
The VA won’t give answers to fairly basic questions. In fact, they won’t even reply with a simple "we can’t comment on ongoing investigations." Apparently McDonald thinks that "I’m trying and it’s a big agency" is a valid explanation, and he doesn’t like the media’s persistence.
We get it. The VA is big and a mess, and it will take time to fix everything, but the media is "amplifying" the "adverse outcomes" because they weren’t paying close enough attention to the agencies failings before the Phoenix scandal. The fact that the new VA secretary seemingly has a disdain for the media, and his employees refuse to cooperate with basic inquiries (I’m not the only reporter whose calls are ignored), doesn’t make me feel the agency is changing all that much.
The major issue in the scandal was secrecy. There were secret waitlists that VA officials were aware of and chose to ignore. When the agency refuses to be transparent in the most basic sense, or the secretary complains about the media’s coverage, it’s difficult to see how they’ve changed culture. Everyone is pleased with the latest improvements, but unless the culture is changed the recent overhaul isn’t going to mean much. It’s hard to be excited about the changes when they we’re announced on national television in conjunction with a statement that expressed annoyance at the media. That mentality is part of the problem that led to this mess.