I’m sure that most of you are aware of the ongoing scandal centered around the Veteran’s Administration healthcare system.  Allegations that VA staff have faked records to hide long waits for care, waits so long that some veterans have died while waiting to be seen, are coming from all corners of the system.  Veterans, from World War II to Afghanistan, are suffering, and it is a national shame.

VA Secretary Shinseki seems to be unable to deal with the problem, and the dispatching of a couple of White House flunkies to ‘investigate’ the issue isn’t going to cut it.  Something radical has to happen, and here’s my idea.

Currently, the VA is a cabinet level agency, run mostly by civilian bureaucrats.  Accountability, indeed the sense of honor that an organization entrusted with the care of those who have earned it with their blood requires, has been watered down and seems to have disappeared.  That has to change.

I propose the formation of a Joint Veteran’s Services Command, composed of military officers and NCO’s from all of the uniformed services.  This new command would be a major command under the Department of Defense, like the Joint Special Operations Command.  All current VA facilities and responsibilities should be moved under this new organization, but not all of the personnel.

The civilian management and ‘leadership’ of the current VA would be pretty much flushed out like the waste that it is.  They can be paid off and shown the door, or they can be thoroughly investigated and then shown the door, whichever is quicker.  They would be replaced with military leadership, from NCO’s and junior officers providing supervision in clinics and offices, to a general officer heading up the new organization.  The actual medical providers, case managers, and such could still be civilian employees, but their leadership, and therefore their direction, would come from military servicemembers.  Let today’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines make sure that our veterans get the care they deserve.  I would love to be a fly on the wall when a VA case manager near Fort Bragg tries to give a World War II or Vietnam veteran the runaround when her supervisor is a paratrooper who fought in Afghanistan.

Would it be perfect?  Absolutely not.  Anyone who’s worn a uniform knows that military bureaucracies can be as infuriating and inefficient as those in the civilian world.   The difference here, from my point of view, would be that military leadership of VA facilities would have a dog in the fight and they would know that they will be held accountable for failure.  Someday, they will leave the service and become veterans, and they will want the facilities and services they will need to be top-notch.  Additionally, a servicemember who is derelict in her duty can be relieved for cause, or even prosecuted, a much different situation than we find with the unionized federal civilians who are neglecting our veterans today.

Doing this might not solve all the problems, but it would be an improvement.