Bill Would Overhaul VA

Veterans would see their claims-processing wait drop to as low as 90 days, under a bill pending before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. The measure also would give veterans the option of visiting community or military health-care facilities if Department of Veterans Affairs clinics cannot see them in a timely manner. Other key provisions would authorize the lease of 27 new health facilities in 18 states, provide emergency funding to hire more doctors, facilitate removal of senior VA officials who fail to do their jobs, upgrade the VA’s scheduling system, help veterans who sustained severe spinal-cord and reproductive and urinary tract injuries who now want to have children, continue the effort to reduce the backlog of unresolved claims, and place VA budgeting under “advance appropriations,” isolating it from annual Capitol Hill budget squabbles. Committee Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, introduced the measure June 1.