VETERANS ADMINISTRATION REFORMS THAT WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN (Trump Position Paper)

Trump Campaign Website ^ | October 31, 2016 | Domald J. Trump

[smoothsailing]

October 31, 2015

Veterans Administration Reforms That Will Make America Great Again

The Goals Of Donald J. Trump's Veterans Plan

The current state of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is absolutely unacceptable. Over 300,000 veterans died waiting for care. Corruption and incompetence were excused. Politicians in Washington have done too little too slowly to fix it. This situation can never happen again, and when Donald J. Trump is president, it will be fixed – fast.

The guiding principle of the Trump plan is ensuring veterans have convenient access to the best quality care. To further this principle, the Trump plan will decrease wait times, improve healthcare outcomes, and facilitate a seamless transition from service into civilian life.

The Trump Plan Will:

1. Ensure our veterans get the care they need wherever and whenever they need it. No more long drives. No more waiting for backlogs. No more excessive red tape. Just the care and support they earned with their service to our country.
2. Support the whole veteran, not just their physical health care, but also by addressing their invisible wounds, investing in our service members’ post-active duty success, transforming the VA to meet the needs of 21^st century service members, and better meeting the needs of our female veterans.
3. Make the VA great again by firing the corrupt and incompetent VA executives who let our veterans down, by modernizing the VA, and by empowering the doctors and nurses to ensure our veterans receive the best care available in a timely manner.

The Trump Plan Gives Veterans The Freedom To Choose And Forces The VA To Compete For Their Dollars

Politicians in Washington have tried to fix the VA by holding hearings and blindly throwing money at the problem. None of it has worked. In fact, wait times were 50% higher this summer than they were a year ago. That’s because the VA lacks the right leadership and management. It’s time we stop trusting Washington politicians to fix the problems and empower our veterans to vote with their feet.

Under a Trump Administration, all veterans eligible for VA health care can bring their veteran's ID card to any doctor or care facility that accepts Medicare to get the care they need immediately. Our veterans have earned the freedom to choose better or more convenient care from the doctor and facility of their choice. The power to choose will stop the wait time backlogs and force the VA to improve and compete if the department wants to keep receiving veteran's healthcare dollars. The VA will become more responsive to veterans, develop more efficient systems, and improve the quality of care because it will have no other choice.

The Trump Plan Treats The Whole Veteran

We must care for the whole veteran, not just their physical health. We must recognize that today’s veterans have very different needs than those of the Greatest Generation.

The Trump Plan Will:

1. Increase funding for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury and suicide prevention services to address our veteran's invisible wounds. Service members are five times more likely to develop depression than civilians. They are almost fifteen times more likely to develop PTSD than civilians. This funding will help provide more and better counseling and care. More funding will also support research on best practices and state of the art treatments to keep our veterans alive, healthy and whole. With these steps, the Trump plan will help the veteran community put the unnecessary stigma surrounding mental health behind them and instead encourage acceptance and treatment in our greater society.
2. Increase funding for job training and placement services (including incentives for companies hiring veterans), educational support and business loans. All Americans agree that we must do everything we can to help put our service men and women on a path to success as they leave active duty by collaborating with the many successful non-profit organizations that are already helping. Service members have learned valuable skills in the military but many need help understanding how to apply those skills in civilian life. Others know how to apply those skills but need help connecting with good jobs to support their families. Still others have an entrepreneurial spirit and are ready to start creating jobs and growing the economy. The Trump plan will strengthen existing programs or replace them with more effective ones to address these needs and to get our veterans working.
3. Transform the VA to meet the needs of 21^st century service members. Today’s veterans have very different needs than those of the generations that came before them. The VA must adapt to meet the needs of this generation of younger, more diverse veterans. The Trump plan will expand VA services for female veterans and ensure the VA is providing the right support for this new generation of veterans.
4. Better support our women veterans. The fact that many VA hospitals don’t permanently staff OBGYN doctors shows an utter lack of respect for the growing number female veterans. Under the Trump plan, every VA hospital in the country will be fully equipped with OBGYN and other women's health services. In addition, women veterans can always choose a different OBGYN in their community using their veteran’s ID card.

The Trump Plan Will Make The VA Great Again

The VA health care program is a disaster. Some candidates want to get rid of it, but our veterans need the VA to be there for them and their families. That’s why the Trump plan will:

1. Fire the corrupt and incompetent VA executives that let our veterans down. Under a Trump Administration, there will be no job security for VA executives that enabled or overlooked corruption and incompetence. They’re fired. New leadership will focus the VA staff on delivering timely, top quality care and other services to our nation’s veterans. Under a Trump Administration, exposing and addressing the VA's inefficiencies and shortcomings will be rewarded, not punished.
2. End waste, fraud and abuse at the VA. The Trump plan will ensure the VA is spending its dollars wisely to provide the greatest impact for veterans and hold administrators accountable for irresponsible spending and abuse. The days of $6.3 million for statues and fountains at VA facilities and $300,000 for a manager to move 140 miles are over. The Trump plan will clean up the VA's finances so the current VA budget provides more and better care than it does now.
3. Modernize the VA. A VA with 20^th century technology cannot serve 21^st century service members and their needs. The VA has been promising to modernize for years without real results. The Trump plan will make it happen by accelerating and expanding investments in state of the art technology to deliver best-in-class care quickly and effectively. All veterans should be able to conveniently schedule appointments, communicate with their doctors, and view accurate wait times with the push of a button.
4. Empower the caregivers to ensure our veterans receive quality care quickly. Caregivers should be able to easily streamline treatment plans across departments and utilize telehealth tools to better serve their patients. As we have seen from the private sector, the potential for new, innovative technology is endless. Abandoning the wasteful and archaic mindset of the public sector will give way to tremendously effective veteran healthcare.
5. Hire more veterans to care for veterans. The more veterans we have working at the VA, the better the VA will be. They understand the unique challenges facing their community. To increase the number of veterans hired by the VA, this plan will add an additional 5 points to the qualifying scores of veterans applying for VA jobs.
6. Embed satellite VA clinics in rural and other underserved areas. The Trump Administration will embed satellite VA clinics within hospitals and other care facilities in rural and other underserved areas. This step will ensure veterans have easy access to care and local hospitals and care facilities can handle the influx of patients without backlogs while tapping the specialized knowledge of VA health specialists.

[dforest]

I like it!

[dragnet2]

"The plan will ensure our veterans get the care they need, wherever and whenever they need it," he said.

This should have been enacted years ago for Veterans and it's a disgrace it wasn't.

DC is rotten to the core.

Go Trump!

[xzins]

I’m retired Army, and this sounds great to me. It includes the one provision that will truly make a difference — competition. “Under a Trump Administration, all veterans eligible for VA health care can bring their veteran’s ID card to any doctor or care facility that accepts Medicare to get the care they need immediately...”

I’d prefer it to say any licensed MD, DO, etc., but the point is being able to sidestep the VA if they don’t respond. Make them compete.

[Guenevere]

Someone mispelled his name at the site......Domald

[corlorde]

BTTT

[DoughtyOne]

While I appreciate Trump’s efforts to craft these policies and put them out there, it is disconcerting to watch folks ignore them to trash him.

His Second Amendment Policy might just as well not have been released for all the good it does him on F.R. Almost daily I read folks state his 2nd Amendment stance is very Leftist in nature.

It probably won’t be long before I read how bad he is on military matters too.

I like what the guy is pushing in public. It’s the same things Reagan pushed. Who knew?

[smoothsailing]

Someone mispelled his name at the site......Domald

I havn't seen that, give me a link to the page where you saw it.

[Duchess47]

Thank you for posting this.

[chriscraft]

Make it a full service VA.

In addition to the GI Bill, I suggest a new Venture Capital Fund for Veteran owned or run businesses.

Fund it’s initial capitalization with crowdfunding, which will let it continue in perpetuity without being a burden on anybody.

[dragnet2]

[airborne]

One of the biggest problems I see at the VA is that the VA trains 75% of doctors and nurses coming out of med school and then doesn’t offer the pay to keep the best and brightest of them working there.

I agree with getting rid of the top heavy administrative types. But paying nurses and doctors competitive wages would go a long way too.

[smoothsailing]

I’d prefer it to say any licensed MD, DO, etc.,

It's probably because a private sector physician who doesn't accept Medicare isn't under any obligation to accept new patients unless he wants to.

[43north]

I work at a rural health clinic contracted with the VA to provide healthcare to vets in North Idaho. I provide them with the best care I can. When I have to send them to the regional VA Hospital the quality of care they receive is definitely a crap shoot. The Choice program is a step in the right direction but it is very time consuming to get appointments scheduled and not all providers will accept the low reimbursement rates that the VA offers (even less than Medicare).

Trump’s plan will work only if he can get rid of the VA’s entrenched bureaucracy. He is the man to do it.

[annieokie]

He also put them on NOTICE that he is going to FIRE them all....

Wanna bet that the begin to straighten up now?

[Dick Bachert]

BTTT.

[Guenevere]

Trump Campaign Website......DoMald J Trump

At the very top of this page

[Future Snake Eater]

A good plan overall, but I see a LOT of devil-in-the-details loopholes that bureaucrats can/will use. I guess we’ll see.

[smoothsailing]

I agree with you. It’s certainly a fact that FR has it’s fair share of blustering factually challenged posters.

[Dick Bachert]

The incompetent bureaucrats (but I repeat myself) at the VA must be wetting themselves at just the thought of a guy who spent 10 years telling people “YOU’RE FIRED” winning the White House.

GOTTA LOVE IT.

That said, my experience is that the majority of physicians and nurses at VA do care about their patients.