VA deal includes $6.4 million for Cobb facility

The bill is a response to a series of scandals at the VA, including staffers manipulating wait times so it would look like veterans were getting appointments faster. It makes it easier for veterans to seek out private care when they do not live close enough to a VA facility.

The legislation prohibits tying personnel bonuses to appointment scheduling and makes it easier for the department to fire top executives.

It also includes funding to build new facilities and expand others to ease the burden on an overstretched system to deal with vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It will help in the whole metro area,” U.S. Rep. David Scott, D-Atlanta, said of the grant for the Austell facility.

But he added “resources” have not been the biggest challenge for the organization.

“The problem has been from the top down of a culture of just complacency and the culture of inefficiency and acceptance,” he said. “These are things we’re getting into in here.”

U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican, said he was pleased the estimated $17 billion compromise was less expensive than what Democrats had originally wanted. He compared allowing vets to seek government-funded care outside the VA system to the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit by involving the private sector.

“When you have competition for any service, health care and anything else, the quality goes up and the cost comes down,” Isakson said.

The House and the Senate passed separate VA bills by overwhelming margins. Isakson predicted the same for the compromise and added that he was pleased to see an agreement just days before Congress leaves town for a month.

“It would be professional malpractice for us not to deal with the VA problem before the August break takes place,” he said. “So I’m glad we got a deal.”