Because unionized public sector employees' jobs and salaries and benefits and pensions are more important than veterans' health and very lives:
The VA Accountability Act of 2015 passed Tuesday largely along party lines by a vote of 256-170, however, it did have some Democrat support, the Washington Post is reporting.
The bill was authored by House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller. The Florida-1 Republican said that it will allow the VA secretary "to remove or demote any employee for poor performance or misconduct."
"At-will" employment, in essence, just like the private sector.
However, prior to the vote, the White House released a statement saying that it would veto the measure if it makes it to Barack Obama's desk, the Military Times reported.
"The bill could have a significant impact on the VA's ability to retain and recruit qualified professionals and may result in a loss of qualified and capable staff to other government agencies or the private sector," the statement said.
A retarded statement, indeed, because "qualified professionals" would, one would like to presume, not produce "poor performance or misconduct," or they wouldn't be "qualified professionals". Unless the term "qualified professionals" means something else entirely to the White House and the VA than it does to, you know, normal people.
Which, of course, it does. Namely, "Players of smart-phone Tetris for fifty bucks an hour while courageous wounded American warriors wither and die on the bureaucratic vine by the thousands like they deserve to".
The Republicans think the bill is necessary because there has not been an increase in firings after the scandal that hit, in which VA patients allegedly died while their names were put on fake wait lists. [emphasis added]
Something that obviously nobody was supposed to notice, and which Chairman Miller and his committee majority did. Hence, Obama's veto threat. You can see it in the Democrats' flat-footed reaction:
During debates on the measure, which had no support from Democrats on the House VA committee, the Post says that Miller pointed out several times that Obama and the Democrats supported similar rules that allowed only VA senior officials to be fired in the last VA reform bill, which the president signed in 2014.
Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association, told the Post that "We are amazed that this bill, which mirrors last year's Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, is only now causing alarm within the administration."
It didn't last year for two reasons: (1) The VA scandal was still front-page news back then and hadn't blown over yet; and (2) "We've changed the secretary, we've changed the rules, we've given them a tremendous amount more money" was just window dressing that was never going to affect the real, core problem, which is that the VA is government-run, single-payer socialized medicine. Sword-falling and money-throwing is how Congress usually "fixes" things, and then makes the problems worse so that they can throw even more money and create even bigger bureaucracies and so on. The VA Accountability Act of 2015 still doesn't do what actually needs to be done - privatize the VA - but it is clearly a step in the right direction, judging by the Dems' reflexive, lock-step opposition to it.
It will obviously not become law....for now. It'll almost certainly be filibustered to death in the Senate before it can even reach Obama's desk to be vetoed. But it does line the VA scandal up nicely on the 2016 issue table as "Why do the Democrats hate veterans and want them to die?" - if, of course, the GOP recognizes the plumb opportunity.
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