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Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Lone Obama Holdover Shulkin Unanimously Confirmed To Take Over Troubled VA
The Senate unaminously confirmed Trump nominee David Shulkin to be聽secretary of Veterans Affairs Monday night. Shulkin, the lone holdover from the Obama administration among President Trump鈥檚 Cabinet picks, has been the VA undersecretary for health since July 2015 and has not drawn the harsh opposition from Democrats that other Trump nominees have faced. (Slack, 2/13)
Senators voted 100-0 to approve the former Obama administration official, who was the VA's top health official since 2015, in a rare show of bipartisanship amid partisan rancor over Trump's other nominees. Shulkin secured the backing of Senate Democrats after pledging at his confirmation hearing to always protect veterans' interests, even if it meant disagreeing at times with Trump. (Yen, 2/13)
Over the past two years, Shulkin oversaw the implementation of the Veterans Access Choice and Accountability Act, a $16 billion congressional fix for the long wait times for veterans seeking care. But an NPR investigation found that the fix itself is broken: A $10 billion program to help veterans get care in the private sector resulted in mountains of red tape, and a $2.5 billion hiring program didn't significantly increase the hiring of new doctors and nurses inside the VA. (Lawrence, 2/13)
The 57-year-old Pennsylvania native will run the second-largest federal agency after serving 18 months as undersecretary for health in charge of VA鈥檚 sprawling medical system, which takes care of nearly 9 million veterans a year. After a long search for a leader who could turn around a system Trump denounced on the campaign trail as a tragic failure, the president surprised critics by turning inside rather than outside for a VA leader. (Rein, 2/13)
"Veterans are very fortunate to have Dr. Shulkin voluntarily stay in what has evolved into the most scrutinized and criticized position in the country," Veterans of Foreign Wars National Commander Brian Duffy said in a statement. "And it should be," he added. The conservative Concerned Veterans for America, which has pushed for veterans to obtain greater health care from the private sector and has criticized the VA for not holding problem employees accountable, said Monday it was "encouraged" Shulkin had "acknowledged systemic failures within the VA and the need for transformational reforms to fix them." (O'Brien, 2/13)
