On September 19, 2024, members of the Department of Veterans Affairs leadership testified before the House Committee on Veterans Affairs - Subcommittee on Technology Modernization Oversidet Hearing that they were projecting income by collecting old debts from veterans and 3rd party insurers. In this, they stated that they were billing companies for debts that were up to 6 years old (the oldest allowed by law). Companies that resisted old debts were being challenged with lawyers. These leaders also admitted that there is no such restriction on collecting debts from veterans. Part of their plan to cover some of the $15,000,000 shortfall was collecting pharmacy co-pays and billing veterans for care going back over a decade They had already started doing it! They acknowledged this could create hardship for veterans and said they were offering payment plans for impacted veterans. All of these errors were caused by faults in VA technology, gaps in programming, and failures in administration.
I am proposing the “Start Using Commonsense and Kindness in Informational Technology Act” (SUCKIT). In this, the VHA would be required to bill for debts owed by veterans within sixty days of that service. Additionally, the paper notice of debt would need to have a bill number and a dedicated phone number (not the national hotline and a litany of extensions) for the veteran to be able to call to make the payment, arrangements, or verbally request a humanitarian waiver of the debt. No 24 click through, multi-authentication, portals to faulty websites, that don’t integrate to other websites, etc. We can see our debts and pay their debts on the VA dot gov website if we want to do it online. Don’t mess with that.
This SUCKIT Act would place the onus for timely and efficient processing of care and transactions on the $369B VA organization without burdening veterans with debts going back a year, a decade, or more that they cannot prove they don’t owe and lack the resources to fight or pay. It would also force leaders to purge processes that take up time and money, reducing spending.
My plan is better just give all veterans health care to whatever doctor they choose and restructure of the VA to be ran by actual veterans, disability ratings ran by veterans, and for Al va medical facilities to be transferred to community hospitals. The VA is an absolute failure and is so incompetent. They tried to come for me when I got divorced and submitted all my paperwork to a VA facility where I watched them scan it into the system. They kept paying me the married with two children pay when I called they told me I needed to resubmit my paperwork which I did a year later still was getting paid calling every month like wtf. Finally they got their stuff together and 2 years after my divorce they contact me via snail mail stating they were going to start cutting my pay till I paid it back. This example not only shows they are incompetent they are also willing to destroy the ones they are suppose to be helping