Trump signs law to fire bad workers, guard whistleblowers at VA

"For many years the government failed to keep its promises to our veterans. We all remember the nightmare that veterans suffered during the VA scandals that were exposed a few years ago. Veterans were put on secret wait lists, given the wrong medication, given the bad treatments and ignored in moments of crisis for them. Many veterans died waiting for a simple doctor's appointments. What happened was a national disgrace," Trump said Friday.

"And yet, some of the employees involved in these scandals remained on the payrolls. Outdated laws kept the government from holding those who failed our veterans accountable. Today, we are finally changing those laws ... to make sure that the scandal of what we suffered so recently never, ever happens again."

The bill was crafted by several lawmakers, including Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

"It's common sense -- we need to hold our employees accountable for their actions if they violate the public trust, and at the same time protect whistleblowers from retaliation," Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said in a statement. "This legislation will help us do just that."

Wtf I love trump now

all the trump haters deserve a dick in the mouth

>>151668
A decent number of them would probably agree with you on that.

>>151668
I'll take one as soon as you're done sucking on it.

>>151661
No breaks

Didn't his budget gut the VA?

>>151696
He's cutting back on benefits and offsetting them with private options

>>151696
No

Looks like pay changes are controlled by the Secretary, which is going to scale with "performance". Performance reductions and removals comes from peer/supervisor reviews. Employees are going to need to really pay attention to those bi-yearly etiquette lessons.

Benefit cutting applies to those convicted of a felony.

They're also going to force misconduct "fees" by taking back bonuses and awards from employees that have any kind of misconduct.

The law doesn't make it easier to fire disruptive employees, but rather to remove the employees faster. Previous timescales of 14 and 30 days are now shortened to 7 days for removal. It just means they're going to need to have a VA attorney close at hand to respond within the 5 business days to anything adverse.

>>151696
no. but he did implement (or wanted to, anyway) something whereby if the wait is too long, a veteran can go to a normal hospital or medical center for treatment instead, while still having it paid by the VA

A good first step towards fixing some glaring problems, but still the VA has to be run more efficiently. Throwing money at the problem won't make it go away.

>>152268
>if the wait is too long, a veteran can go to a normal hospital or medical center for treatment instead
Where do they normally get treatment?
Regular military hospital or somewhere just for veterans?