Veterans' group poo-poos Obama's new VA commission

The nation's leading conservative veterans' group on Friday accused President Barack Obama of punting on the problems that still surround the Department of Veterans Affairs, by setting up a commission to once again study ways to improve the broken department.

During a visit to the Phoenix VA system, Obama was expected to call for a commission made up of private-sector, non-profit and government officials to focus on how to improve the VA. "The members of this new advisory committee have experience in customer service, large-scale organizational change and advocacy for veterans and include business leaders, veteran service organizations members, and health sciences and academic professionals," a White House official said today.

VA Secretary Robert McDonald will be part of another VA commission to study problems at his department, an idea a veterans dismissed as redundant. Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

But the Concerned Veterans for America said that's just more of the same, and that it ignores legislation passed last year that already gives the VA the tools to manage itself.

"[W]e are disappointed – but hardly surprised – that he has in effect punted the search for solutions to yet another committee," CVA legislative director Dan Caldwell said. He added that last year's legislation already created two commissions aimed at fully reviewing the VA.

"The need for yet another advisory entity is hard to justify and this appears to be nothing more than another attempt by the White House to give the appearance that President Obama is engaged on the issue of VA reform," Caldwell said. "America's veterans don't need another cosmetic study of the myriad of problems plaguing the VA."

"They want, need and deserve the health care choice they were promised, accountability for bad VA executives they expect, and a president who does more than offer empty rhetoric to America's veterans and punts serious problems at the VA to someone else to solve," he added.

The VA is already allowed to fire senior officials who are corrupt and negligent, and is allowed to direct veterans to non-VA clinics if the VA itself can't help quickly enough. But evidence continues to mount that these authorities are not being used.

CVA itself has a new legislative proposal to give veterans more control over their healthcare. Caldwell warned that if federal officials fail to push for real reform at the troubled agency, "they will be remembered for how they failed to put the needs of America's veterans above the VA's sprawling bureaucracy."