Statement on H.R. 4089

In 1991, Congress passed legislation to provide VA health care professionals such as registered nurses, physicians, physician assistants, dentists, podiatrists and optometrists with essentially the same labor rights held by other federal employees under Title 5. Under this law, VA health care professionals are able to negotiate, file grievances and arbitrate disputes over working conditions.

This law makes an exception for disputes arising from issues such as direct patient care and clinical competence, peer review, and the establishment, determination, or adjustment of employee compensation.

The Secretary has the authority to determine whether an issue or concern falls under the previous exceptions. This determination by the Secretary is not subject to collective bargaining or review by any other agencies.

Health care professionals have complained that VA is interpreting these narrow exceptions in the law very broadly, and consequently is negatively impacting areas such as schedules and floating assignments for nurses and retention allowances for physicians.

From a broader perspective, these labor issues may be adversely impacting VA’s ability to recruit and retain high quality health care professionals, particularly nurses. Almost 22,000 of the RNs caring for our veterans will be eligible to retire by 2010 while 77% of all RN resignations occur within the first five years.

I introduced H.R. 4089 to address these important labor issues.

H.R. 4089 amends 38 USC, Section 7422 and repeals the three exceptions to the rights of VA health care professionals to engage in collective bargaining.

It also requires the VA to make a final decision with respect to the review of an adverse personnel action against a VA employee not later than 60 days after such action has been appealed.

Further, these decision may be subject to judicial review in the appropriate U.S. District Court or, if the decision is made by a labor arbitrator, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

I appreciate the comments from the witnesses today. I look forward to working with the VA, my colleagues and interested stakeholders to ensure that VA health care professionals are afforded the appropriate collective bargaining rights. I hope that this will ultimately lead to improved recruitment and retention of health care providers within the Department.

Thank you and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding H.R. 4089.

Statement on H.R. 5888

On October 9, 2007 Stephen Brady, a 60% service connected veteran, was in a serious motorcycle accident. Following his accident, Stephen was transported to a non-VA medical facility for emergency care. VA has refused to pay for any of his emergency medical care in the non-VA facility because he carried an auto insurance policy which paid for $10,000 of his medical care.

The law in its current form does not allow the VA to pay for emergency treatment for non-service connected conditions in non-Department facilities if a veteran has third party insurance that pays for any portion, either in full or in part, of the of emergency care.

This creates an inequity that penalizes veterans with insurance, including auto insurance which is oftentimes mandated by law. A veteran with an insurance policy which covers any portion of the cost for emergency treatment would be burdened with the remaining amount not covered by insurance. This unfair policy has caused many veterans undue stress and has placed them in unnecessary financial hardship.

HR 5888 eliminates this inequity in the law by requiring the VA to pay for emergency care in non-VA facilities for eligible veterans unless the veteran has other insurance that will pay for the full cost of the emergency care. In short, this bill would require the VA to pay for emergency care in a non-VA facility, even if the veteran holds a policy that will pay for any portion of their care.

I appreciate the comments from the witnesses today. I look forward to working with the VA, my colleagues and interested stakeholders to ensure that what happened to Stephen Brady does not happen to other veterans.

Thank you and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding H.R. 5888.