OBAMA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/VA/VETS: “VA Secretary David Shulkin has proved to be something unique in President Donald Trump’s Washington: an Obama appointee nominated by Trump who is beloved by almost everyone and getting stuff done.
By tweaking regulations, he has managed to fire hundreds of allegedly incompetent employees, publicized waiting times at Veterans Affairs clinics, gotten money to expand vets’ treatment by private doctors, and expanded care for isolated vets through telemedicine and mobile phones, while promising to close 430 vacant VA buildings and speed up benefit awards. Shulkin also made a bold — and risky — decision to bypass contracting rules to buy a $16 billion digital health record system…
But there’s a reason Shulkin was Trump’s fourth choice for the VA job — or possibly the fifth, or the 10th, depending on whom you ask. The VA, with 350,000 employees and 1,250 health care sites, is a political quagmire. Not many people want to clean up others’ messes with hundreds of people looking over their shoulder.
The VA’s conservative critics are holding their fire now that a GOP administration and Congress control the agency. But savaging from both left and right is likely to start up again if Shulkin’s mission flags. That could easily happen.
The administration and Congress must agree on a way to scrap or overcome budget caps to fund an ambitious Shulkin agenda that includes building up the $70 billion VA health system from within while simultaneously enabling veterans to get care outside its doors.”
-Arthur Allen, “Trump’s most popular Cabinet secretary is Obama holdover,” Politico, Aug. 28, 2017 04:57am