No veteran should have to wait for the benefits that they were promised and they have earned through service to this nation.

Since the 2014 Phoenix scandal exposed many VA problems across the country, IAVA has been a leader in the fight to drive accountability. We supported empowering the VA Secretary with the tools to expedite the removal of employees who harm veterans, and with the advocacy by IAVA and our VSO partners, the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act was finally signed into law in 2017. 

IAVA also worked with our VSO partners to finally reform and streamline the VA’s disability appeals process with the passage of the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act. The VA “Choice” Program still lingers, and IAVA banded together with our VSO partners to defeat on the House floor an extension that would have ignored critical VA needs by pulling money away from other core services to fund this controversial, unproven public policy experiment. 

In the wake of the defeat of that proposal, IAVA succeeded in helping to pass a Choice funding extension that did not compromise investment in VA foundational services and hiring.