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..and give vets the ability to see the doctor of their choice.

Agreed there, but many of the Veteran's Hospitals and Clinics are top-notch, and I know this from personal experience.

The local clinics I've been to have been very good.

The doctors mostly excellent in both the clinics and hospitals.

But the hospitals such as East Orange New Jersey don't even have enough parking.
And it's quite a walk up that hill for some vets that have trouble even standing.

The patients there on at least one floor were not given their pain meds at night-(they had surgeries the day before)

At least one patient I know of was laying in his own urine leaking from a tube in his back from his kidney surgery.
No one changed his bedding or cleaned him until I got there.
(he also did not receive pain meds even though he asked for and was told he would be getting it in 'just a few minutes'

If you live just under the 40 mile limit they set for choice to go to an outside doctor, they will not pay.

No veteran should be denied the free care that every person getting Medicaid gets.

All Veterans that receive Medicare (which they pay for every month) should have their out of pocket costs paid for by the VA when they choose to go to a doctor or hospital that's closer.

People on welfare are treated better.

Get rid of the nespotism, cronyism, non-former military executives in the VA and it would run fine all over the country. Whenever possible only hire vets, and that includes doctors. If no qualified vet then look at non-vets. Once the vet is hired, for any position, give him preference for advancement over non-vets. You have retired senior NCOs pushing mops all over the VA, working for a 30 year old who was hired by her mother when she was 18 years old. Or an 18 year old, who never served a day, hired by a relative in the maintenance shop, passing over vets who have worked in the shop for years. All this nonsense needs to end.