Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., on Tuesday called on VA Secretary David Shulkin to fix ongoing breakdowns at the national health enrollment office in Atlanta that is delaying benefits to thousands of veterans across the country.
Isakson and a bipartisan group of Congressional leaders who oversee veterans issues wrote a March 3 letter to Shulkin, released Tuesday, that calls on him to correct the failure of the Health Eligibility Center in DeKalb County to resolve the pending backlog of hundreds of thousands of health care applications.
VA leaders last year said they had a plan to contact veterans on the backlog and enroll them or clear their applications from the list. But a coding mistake reported by the AJC in February led to veterans getting the wrong letters and further delaying a fix for potentially hundreds of thousands of veterans applications.
"Given the enormity of the impact on veterans, we urge you to take additional steps to further ensure veterans receive every opportunity to complete their applications and that those applications are not improperly closed due to VA error," the letter from the senators and congressmen said.
