As chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and as a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, I was pleased to see legislation I led, the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, pass the Senate with broad bipartisan support this week.
Despite efforts to make certain the VA is held accountable, too many veterans continue to experience mistreatment at the hands of bad actors among VA’s employees. This legislation gives the VA secretary the tools he needs to remove those who fail to perform their duties to provide our veterans with the care they deserve while ensuring that whistleblowers are appropriately protected.
In Kansas, we’ve seen a disturbing case where a VA employee who abused veterans on the job was allowed to collect benefits after retiring from the VA.
In Kansas, we’ve seen a disturbing case where a VA employee who abused veterans on the job was allowed to collect benefits after retiring from the VA.
We must make sure that kind of injustice can never happen again, which is why I pushed to include a provision in this bill to make certain that senior Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) executives and health care employees convicted of a felony related to their position at the VA cannot receive the same benefits as those who honorably serve our nation’s veterans.
This legislation will allow the VA to take steps to earn back the trust of the veterans they are charged with serving.
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