Wisconsin Lawmakers Roll Out Legislation Targeting VA

Following controversy over prescription practices and retaliation at a Veterans Affairs medical center in Tomah, lawmakers in Wisconsin have been rolling out a number of bills that aim to reform the system.

Some bills are dealing with prescription drug monitoring and improving pain management at the medical centers. Rep. Ron Kind got each Wisconsin member of Congress, Republicans and Democrats to cosponsor a bill that would ensure the VA is more transparent about its investigations.

Rep. Sean Duffy is among the lawmakers across the country introducing legislation that would give the VA more authority to fire its employees. Duffy’s bill would expand the VA secretary’s ability to fire not just senior executives, but any full-time VA health care worker for misconduct or performance issues.

The bill is in response to the department’s growing list of scandals, including several that involve the Tomah VA. Multiple investigations are looking into deaths among veterans, prescriptions practices, and retaliation against employees.

Duffy said there are far too many hoops to jump through to fire someone at the VA and this is one way to speed up the process and get rid of the few bad employees.

“It becomes so laborious, a system that the private sector would never have to use, because the lawsuits that can come after someone in the VA system is fired can get tied up for years,” he said.

Duffy said everyone deserves due process, but he’s frustrated that top Tomah VA officials are still receiving paychecks. No Tomah VA officials administrators have been fired, the former chief of staff and a nurse practitioner are on administrative leave and the former medical center director was reassigned elsewhere in the VA.

Former Tomah VA employee Ryan Honl is a whistleblower who helped bring many of the issues at the medical center to light. He said the legislation is not perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Honl supports one bill that would make it easier to fire or demote VA employees.

“Everything comes down to accountability,” he said. “If you feel like senior VA leaders feel right now — that there’s no way they’re going to lose their jobs, and they don’t have that threat — then what’s the motivation to change behavior?”

Even if Congress passes these laws, Honl said he still has concerns that the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, which allows federal employees to appeal a recent or forthcoming firing to a judge, may protect senior management and not lower-level employees. Regardless, he said he hopes the lawmakers can put aside partisan politics for these issues.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story referred to problems at a Tomah Department of Veterans Affairs clinic. The Tomah VA Medical Center includes multiple clinics but the story refers to the entire center. It has been updated.