West Virginia’s two U.S. senators have joined with five others to terminate a plan that would effectively close this state’s three VA medical centers.
The group announced Tuesday its members had reintroduced the Elimination of the VA Asset and Infrastructure Review (AIR) Commission Act, which, if passed, would eliminate a commission tasked with approving a report that made recommendations to “modernize facilities and realign priorities” within the VA health care systems.
If the recommendations were followed, the VA medical centers in Huntington, Beckley and Clarksburg would discontinue inpatient medical, surgical and emergency medical services, along with more minor recommendations for smaller facilities, and instead outsource those procedures to publicly accessible hospitals. West Virginia risks losing more than 250 hospital beds.
The report is part of the VA Mission Act, passed by Congress in 2018. The commission formed through the act has not been seated, but the senators have opposed its nominees, stating there is no rural representation among the recommended commissioners.
“Not only have I heard from countless veterans in West Virginia who are rightly concerned that they will have more difficulty getting the care they need, I’ve heard from our local leaders and providers that they may not be able to accommodate the changes being proposed,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said the results of the report are skewed against people in rural communities.
Other senators who have joined with Manchin and Capito are Mike Rounds and John Thune, both R-South Dakota; Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan, D-New Mexico; and Maggie Hassan, D-New Hampshire. Note that these senators represent states with largely rural populations.
As has been said here before, the whole process of reviewing the VA medical system and recommending changes is flawed. It largely ignored the needs of the veterans it serves. As Manchin noted, its recommendations were geared toward moving services toward metro services and leaving rural areas with small clinics.
The commission must approve the recommendations, or make its own, by February 2023, after which the president will have until March 30, 2023, to decide whether to approve. Congress has 45 days from the president’s approval to make its own approval.
The best idea would be to end this fatally flawed process now. When another department floated a plan about 30 years ago to eliminate the Huntington District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and move its functions to Pittsburgh, then-U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., came to Huntington and declared that plan “dead on arrival.” This plan merits the same fate.