Even though it's been six months since President Barack Obama signed the Veterans Affairs reform bill into law, conditions have not improved for America's veterans, a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars said Friday on
Newsmax TV.
"Unfortunately, this bill that everyone worked so hard to pass last summer that had the potential to do so much good for veterans, to give them that freedom of healthcare choice and to go out and select their doctor," hasn't worked, Amber Smith, who served in the 101st Airborne Division, told host Ed Berliner on "MidPoint."
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Smith contends that VA officials don't like the reforms and "they don't believe in healthcare choice. They don't want veterans to proceed with this healthcare choice option.
"I don't think there has been any change at this point for veterans," she added.
President Barack Obama signed the Veterans' Access to Care Through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2014 in August, which gave Veterans Affairs $16.3 billion to enact reforms within the agency.
The funding bill was passed in response to reports that veterans were dying while waiting to see doctors at VA hospitals because of alleged secret wait lists.
Smith says that the bill had two main purposes — to give veterans "choice and accountability."
However, "what we are already seeing with the budget, they're trying to undermine the veteran's choice program where they're trying to take some of that money that was allocated of the $16 billion bill, and they're trying to take some of that money and put it back into standard VA, which is taking the money away from choice for veterans," she said.
While she says new VA Secretary Robert McDonald is "working hard," she also says it would help if the White House showed "more leadership."
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