John McCain forgot about $22 million already spent on "new plan" for VA

What is John McCain up to?

Senate GOP presses new bill to overhaul VA
Stars and Stripes
By Travis J. Tritten
Published: June 3, 2014

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Tuesday unveiled their plan to repair the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs health care system by weeding out wrongdoing and expanding access to private care.

The bill allows veterans to choose a private provider if they live far from VA facilities or have difficulty getting timely care. It also gives the VA secretary more leeway to fire senior executives and forces the department to set new punishments for employees who falsify records, according to McCain and co-sponsors Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

The Republicans floated the legislation just a day after Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with the Democrats, filed a wide-ranging VA reform bill that would also provides wider access to private care and more authority for the VA secretary to remove incompetent executives.

“Unlike Sen. Sanders’ bill, this addresses the root cause of the current VA scandal,” which is long waiting times for patients to receive care, and employee wrongdoing, McCain said.

The senators claimed their bill is more focused than Sanders’ legislation, which also covers physician hiring, facility leases, scholarships, software upgrades, cost-of-living assistance adjustments for servicemembers, tuition assistance and a raft of other issues.
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While this may sound like a really good idea, it has been done before, way back in 2009 with a pricetag of $22 million!

VA Announces $22 Million for Rural Veterans
Peake: Down Payment on Expansion of Services
WASHINGTON (January 9, 2009) -- The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has provided $21.7 million to its regional healthcare systems to improve services specifically designed for veterans in rural areas.

"This special allocation is the latest down payment on VA's commitment to meet the needs of veterans living in rural areas," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. James B. Peake. "VA will take to our rural veterans the health care services they have earned."

Within the last year, VA has launched a major rural health initiative. The Department has already created a 13-member committee to advise the VA secretary on issues affecting rural veterans, opened three rural health resource centers to better understand rural health issues, rolled out four new mobile health clinics to serve 24 predominately rural counties, announced the opening of 10 new rural outreach clinics in 2009 and launched a fleet of 50 new mobile counseling centers.

The extra funding is part of a two-year VA program to improve the access and quality of health care for veterans in geographically isolated areas. The program focuses on several areas, including access to health care, providing world-class care, the use of the latest technology, recruiting and retaining a highly educated workforce and collaborating with other organizations.

More specifically, the new funds will be used to increase the number of mobile clinics, establish new outpatient clinics, expand fee-based care, explore collaborations with federal and community partners, accelerate the use of telemedicine deployment, and fund innovative pilot programs.

The new funds will be distributed according to the proportion of veterans living in rural areas within each VA regional healthcare system, called VISNs, for "Veterans Integrated Service Networks." VISNs with less than 3 percent of their patients in rural areas will receive $250,000. Those with population of rural veterans between 3 percent and 6 percent will receive $1 million each. And VISNs with more than 6 percent of their veterans population in rural areas will receive $1.5 million.

Special VA Funding for Rural Health
(By VISN number and VISN Headquarters)
#1. Bedford, Mass., $1 million
#2. Rochester, N.Y., $1 million
#3. New York, N.Y., $250,000
#4. Wilmington, Del., $1 million
#5. Baltimore, Md., $250,000
#6. Durham, N.C., $1.5 million
#7. Atlanta, Ga., $1.5 million
#8. Bay Pines, Fla., $1 million
#9. Nashville, Tenn., $1.5 million
#10. Cincinnati, Ohio, $1 million
#11. Ann Arbor, Mich., $1 million
#12. Chicago, Ill., $1 million
#15. Kansas City, Mo., $1.5 million
#16. Jackson, Miss., $1.5 million
#17. Arlington, Texas, $1 million
#18. Mesa, Ariz., $1 million
#19. Denver, Colo., $1 million
#20. Vancouver, Wash., $1 million
#21. Palo Alto, Calif., $1 million
#22. Long Beach, Calif., $250,000
#23. Lincoln, Neb., $1.5 million

Rural Veterans Access to Care Act

As for tuition assistance, McCain was against it before he got credit for it. Ask Jim Webb on the fight he had with McCain over the GI Bill.

McCain says the legislation is too expensive and has proposed his own version, which would increase the monthly benefit available to most veterans to $1,500 from $1,100. It would not offer the equivalent of a full scholarship.

The ad by VoteVets.org Action Fund, features Iraq and Afghanistan veterans noting that both McCain and President Bush oppose the bill. "McCain thinks covering a fraction of our education is enough," one veteran says. Another one, pictured recovering from head wounds, adds in a voiceover: "We didn't give a fraction in Iraq. We gave 100 percent."