Shulkin Mulls Closing 1,100 'Underutilized' VA Facilities

KWTV-TV ^ | May 4, 2017 | The Associated Press

[2ndDivisionVet]

Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin says his department is seeking to close perhaps more than 1,100 VA facilities nationwide as it develops plans to allow more veterans to receive medical care in the private sector.

At a House hearing Wednesday, Shulkin said the VA had identified more than 430 vacant buildings and 735 that he described as underutilized, costing the federal government $25 million a year. He said the VA would work with Congress in prioritizing buildings for closure and was considering whether to follow a process the Pentagon had used in recent decades to decide which of its underused military bases to shutter, known as Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC.

"Whether BRAC is a model that we should take a look, we're beginning that discussion with members of Congress," Shulkin told a House appropriations subcommittee....

[Mariner]

Put those 3 guys in podunk on private care, with the option to directly access VA facilities when appropriate and desired.

Close these “underutilized” government facilities and lay off those workers. Use the money for private insurance.

[binreadin]

Agree. Prioritize those dysfunctional VAs with heavily activist unions—I'm thinking Detroit and Atlanta to start. My only concern is who would coordinate the Choice programs for the vets—where would the entry point be? Perhaps liaisons could be established in the local community hospitals to save the vets having to travel for hours just to get a referral. The VA needs to be completely reorganized, for real, not the shuffling around they always seem to be doing.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Are we supposed to believe that 1100 buildings and presumably, some number of employees who occasionally work inside them, cost $25 MM a year? You mean $22.7K each? I would expect such an amount as the janitorial bill for such buildings.

Those numbers impossibly skewed.

[hinckley buzzard]

There have always been underutilized VA facilities, kept alive only as a political favor to the local Congressmen. Contracting out and closing old obsolete barns would be a great savings and improve care to boot. .

[ptsal]

$25-million is not on the chart for things to do.

Congress blows that much daily on goofy feel-good stuff in DC.

[TADSLOS]

Stop mulling and start doing.

[LYDIAONTARIO]

Keeping a park open is expensive.....because nature can’t be viewed or hiked on without dozens of rangers or other govt workers, so buildings !ust be outrageous rip-offs, too!

[Redmen4ever]

>some of these buildings might be re-purposed, preserving our heritage while shaving operational expenses. Here are two examples of vacant buildings turned into housing for veterans.

http://www.terracon.com/projects/ft-levenworth-ridge-top-apartments/

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-veteran-housing-20150609-story.html

Here you can see quite a few other buildings indicated to be vacant on the Los Angeles VA campus. Conversion into housing for qualifying veterans could be an option. (Building 500 is the Main Hospital.)

https://www.losangeles.va.gov/documents/mapwlavamc.pdf

[Always A Marine]

Close all VA facilities. Veterans with truly debilitating injuries directly stemming from their military service can go to regular hospitals and Uncle Sam can pay for it. For everyone else like me, who returned to civilian life with nothing worse than hearing loss and a bad back, thank you for your service and get on with your lives. Nobody owes us a thing.

[11Bush]

For everyone else like me, who returned to civilian life with nothing worse than hearing loss and a bad back, thank you for your service and get on with your lives. Nobody owes us a thing.

I might add bad knees, but everything else is on target.

[narses]

Indeed, now you need to run for office with that message. ONLY a disabled vet can make that case, anyone else will get screwed.

BTW thanks for your service and sacrifice.

[Redwood71]

$25 million? This is peanuts. If they are wishing to close facilities that are not being used at all, go for it. But to close underutilized facilities is their fault, not the fault of the patients. They don’t have enough doctors or facilities to handle what they’ve got. Expand the facilities that are being under used, and close those with the spider webs. But you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

$25 million? The President’s 2017 Budget includes $182.3 billion for VA in 2017. This includes $78.7 billion in discretionary resources and $103.6 billion in mandatory funding. Our discretionary budget request represents an increase of $3.6 billion, or 4.9 percent, over the 2016 enacted level.Feb 12, 2016.

Peanuts isn’t going to help the dollar value if you can’t fill the requirement to begin with. Think smart, not cut. And quit hiding money in slush funds that no one knows about.

rwood

[vpintheak]

This disabled veteran says: Shut them all down! The VA can conduct paperwork and simply be the insurance company for veterans.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Close these “underutilized” government facilities and lay off those workers. Use the money for private insurance.

First transfer all the workers they can't fire for performance reasons to these vacant buildings, then close them and lay them off.

[i_robot73]

25MM? Close ‘em off? Damn, govt keeps that inefficiency train RUNNING; no WAY it only costs that much.

Fire the ‘employees’, close ‘em down and sell off (or return to the States from which they reside).

Unfort., I suspect, they’ll stay ‘on the books’, NOT generating taxes, requiring maint\fixing anyway....

[Augie]

You people jaw-flapping about shutting down the VA hospitals and sending the vets to other facilities for care don’t have one friggin’ clue what you’re talking about.

You think there’s a problem getting care for vets now? Just where is it that you’re going to send them? Hospital beds don’t just grow on trees.

You remind me of the hippy that told me the conservation department should round up the whitetail deer and ship them out west where they would have more room to roam and not get hit by cars.

[Grampa Dave]

“I might add bad knees, but everything else is on target.”

I would add bad feet to yours and Always A Marine. My orthopod, who referred me to another orthopod, who did foot surgery on me. He said I had classic Navy or Marine bad feet from standing on the Navy Flat Steel Decks.

The one foot operated on has so many screws and other metal in it, it’s Xray looks like an Ace Ad for nuts/screws and plates. Now, I set off alarms at airports and professional sporting events that have metal detection sites. My wife has Ace Hardware in one of her wrists and a shoulder. We have a lot of fun at the metal screening lines.

Actually, my hearing is better now than when I got out of the Navy.

I did use my VA home loan to help buy our first home and to the VA system to help pay for my masters degree.

The rest of our life has been paid for by us.

[unixfox]

Why not sell those facilities as well. Might as well get something out of the deal.

[redfreedom]

Agreed. I’m on the Choice program. Use my own doctor downtown as the nearest VA facility is 300 miles away. And I hope they do not build a VA facility closer.