Denis McDonough: Nominee Currently: Robert Wilkie
Veterans were a crucial constituency for Trump, who expanded their options to receive private health care outside the VA system. Biden, while not pledging to halt private care, has said he would work to build up the government-run system by filling thousands of vacancies for doctors, nurses and other medical staff.
Denis McDonough
Former White House Chief of Staff
McDonough was Obama’s chief of staff during his second term, but he previously served as deputy national security adviser and as chief of staff to the National Security Council.
Source: Washington Post Reported by Lisa Rein.
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2021-01-19 Who is Denis McDonough – Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Biography, Personal Life and Career Biden is continuing to stockpile his incoming administration with prominent members of Obama’s team, and McDonough is the latest choice, according to a person familiar with the selection. This person was not authorized to discuss the nomination before the formal announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Biden transition team made the announcement official in an email Thursday morning. A member of the transition team, speaking anonymously, said Biden chose McDonough because he’s a “crisis-tested public servant” with “the empathy, the character, the integrity and ethics, and the relentless work ethic the position demands.
2021-01-13 To VA Secretary Nominee Denis McDonough: Here’s How We Fix the Broken VA There are three things the next secretary must do.
First, be wary of the deeply entrenched and bureaucratic “advice” you will hear from your leaders. In my humble opinion, the main problem plaguing the VA is that its leaders have failed to imagine new solutions to old problems, primarily because they lack the ability to ask the right questions. Heck, they might not even realize there are problems.
Second, it is time for fewer pills and more community. The VA’s answer to the veteran mental health crisis and suicide epidemic is more pills. Wrong. The answer is more community. It is time for the VA to unite with local communities, including creating and leading in-person and virtual events for veterans worldwide. Depression, anxiety and mental health issues are often underlying symptoms of loneliness and isolation, not necessarily the cause.
Third, it is time for the VA to create a free basic education and training course for all things VA benefits. It must be simple and easy to understand for all veterans. While I am not the brightest bulb on the porch, I am not stupid, either. But it still took me seven years of seemingly endless battles and multiple rounds of denials after leaving the military to finally get the VA benefits I deserved for my honorable service. And I consider myself lucky.
2021-01-11 An open letter to VA Secretary-designate McDonough Looking ahead to the next four years and where the VA can go during the Biden administration, I would like to offer six ideas for not just improving the status quo, but taking the VA to the next level and creating a full continuum system to support our nation’s veterans. In Virginia we have led the way in many aspects of support for transitioning service members (TSM), veterans, National Guard, and family members.
First, women veterans. It is no secret that many were hoping for a woman to lead DoD or VA. Women have served honorably since the Revolutionary War. Secretary-designate McDonough should reach out early and often to women veterans, and work to ensure each state has created staff positions dedicated to supporting women veterans.
Second, the VA should partner with functional medicine doctors, “biohackers,” leading university health researchers and Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs on cutting-edge health, nutrition and scientific advancements and integrate those practices, technologies and nutritional strategies into VA care.
Third, the VA should continue and expand efforts to integrate health care and records systems with DoD. The two agencies not sharing this valuable information or working collaboratively across military hospitals and VAMCs and CBOCs costs the taxpayer billions of dollars and creates frustration, confusion and chaos for transitioning service members and veterans.
Fourth, dovetailing with the above recommendations, is to work with DoD to improve nutrition, training and resiliency practices for active-duty service members. The healthier our military is while serving — physically, mentally, emotionally — the longer they will be able to serve, and the less need there will be for VA services once they separate and become veterans.
Fifth, continue to focus on suicide prevention, bolstering efforts of nonprofits and the states. Virginia built cutting-edge continuum of care systems to support veterans in need of rehabilitative and behavioral health services by partnering with local agencies, nonprofits, VSOs and universities to create a whole-community approach to supporting and serving our veterans.
And lastly, focus on strategic planning and analyzing veterans’ programs in the states, within VSOs and other nonprofits and let the “cream rise to the top.” Federal-state partnerships and public-private partnerships should be encouraged. The job of assisting the transition from active-duty to veteran status and the lifelong support of veterans is too big for any one agency, state or group.
2021-12-22 My pledge to our nation’s veterans As I look forward to my own new leadership role serving veterans, President-elect Biden has made it clear what he wants me to do: “fight like hell for our veterans.” I’m ready to take on that fight. As secretary, I will work to rebuild trust and restore VA as the premier agency for ensuring our veterans overall well-being.
Our nation’s veterans know how badly this is needed. Long wars have taken their toll on our veterans and their families, and the physical and mental health care services available to veterans have not always kept up. Moreover, the dedicated men and women who work tirelessly to serve the department have been impeded by mismanagement, staff shortfalls, leadership gaps, and IT systems failures.
2020-12-18 Will Biden’s Surprise VA Pick Halt the Slide Toward Privatization? Biden nominated Denis McDonough, a 51-year-old alumnus of the Obama White House who never served in the military and lacks any background in health care administration (a relevant qualification, because the VA operates the largest public hospital system in the country). After working as a Capitol Hill staffer and Center for American Progress senior fellow, McDonough first joined the Obama administration as a national-security adviser and then became the president’s second-term chief of staff. In the latter role, McDonough is credited with being “deeply involved” in the White House decision to sack Eric Shinseki and replace him with McDonald in 2014. This shake-up occurred after a few VA hospital managers in Phoenix falsified data about how long veterans were waiting for appointments, triggering a major political uproar. According to a White House colleague at the time, McDonough became “obsessed” with health care wait times, and helped solve the problem by using his Capitol Hill contacts to expand outsourcing of veterans’ care via the Veterans Choice program, recently hailed as one of Obama’s “most substantial second-term legislative achievements.”
Nevertheless, McDonough drew mixed reviews from veterans advocates, who favored the Choice program six years ago, but now may be a bit miffed about their organizational exclusion from Biden’s VA transition team. “We were expecting a veteran, maybe a post-9/11 veteran. Maybe a woman veteran. Or maybe a veteran who knows the VA exceptionally well,” said Joe Chenelly, executive director of AMVETS. “It’s a shockingly out-of-touch pick,” Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told Politico. “They could have selected someone who’s been a patient there or has any direct experience with that community.”
McDonough was once hailed, by a now retired Republican member, as “a breath of fresh air” when he served as Obama’s chief of staff. Assuming his nomination sails through the Senate, the new VA secretary’s top priority should be getting something undone—namely, the partial privatization of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). That process began with the Choice Act in 2014, legislation that had a sunset provision and was not intended by then–Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chair Bernie Sanders to become a permanent solution to expanding access to outside providers. As Sanders and others argued, veterans would be better served by Congress investing more in the VHA’s own coordinated system of direct and specialized care for nine million patients.
2020-12-10 Some veterans groups disappointed Biden’s pick for VA chief never served in uniform
2020-12-10 Biden nominates Denis McDonough to lead VA, turning to another longtime Obama adviser
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