By Sam Friedman
A 2014 law to reform the Veterans Administration health care system has so far made things worse, at least in Alaska, said veterans testifying Monday morning at a congressional listening session in Fairbanks.
A frustrated group of veterans at the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly chambers testified that the Veterans Choice Act hasn’t improved their care as promised. About two dozen people testified, too many to fit the hearing’s two-hour time limit.
They described unexplained denials of service, months of waiting for the VA to pay claims and confusing telephone conversations with automated phone systems in the Lower 48. According to an account from a previous hearing, there are 900 1-800 numbers and 14 websites that require their own login information associated with the new program.
Congress passed the Veterans Choice Act last year in response to a scandal at the Phoenix office of the Veterans
Administration, where officials deliberately distorted statistics on veterans’ wait times for appointments to make it look like the VA was serving clients on time. The law was 
supposed to make it easier for veterans to get care by letting them get treatment at any doctor who accepts Medicare.
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