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WASHINGTON, D.C.- Dr. Dan Benishek, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Veterans Health, introduced a bill today that would give Congress and the public access to key data from Veterans Affairs hospitals across the country. The Veterans Information Modernization Act would direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to submit an annual report on the Veterans Health Administration’s efforts to provide hospital care, medical services, and nursing home care.
“In order to hold the VA accountable, we must have access to basic information on the types of services they are providing and the cost of doing so. This information, which is commonplace in the private sector, has to date been kept from Congress. My legislation will change that,” said Dr. Dan Benishek, who served as a surgeon at the VA Hospital in Iron Mountain, MI.
This legislation follows a hearing that Congressman Dan Benishek chaired in January at the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Health. The hearing examined a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis comparing VA health care costs with those of private sector health care systems.
In their report, CBO found that “…limited evidence and substantial uncertainty make it difficult to reach firm conclusions about [VHA’s] relative costs…” This uncertainty is the direct result of VA’s failure to provide the information that is needed to assist Congress and the public in judging the value of VA’s health care system.
With passage of the Veterans Information Modernization Act, VA hospitals would be directed to regularly compile this information and share it with Congress.
Dr. Benishek spent 20 years as a VA doctor treating patients at the Iron Mountain VA facility. As Chairman of the Veterans Health Subcommittee, he played an integral role in creating and helping to pass the landmark reform legislation, leading many of the hearings that uncovered the VA’s incompetency. Dr. Benishek was also successful in getting a new law enacted based on an idea from a local veterans that provides Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs) greater access to federal surplus property, such as spare vehicles and equipment, for use at their facilities. You can learn more about Dr. Benishek’s Veterans Action Initiative here.
