Ken Cope Calls for Thorough Reforms at the VA

Arlington, TX, February 21, 2018 --(PR.com)-- Ken Cope, Republican candidate for Congress in the Sixth District, today called for aggressive reforms in the Department of Veterans Affairs and said he will make that one of his top priorities as a legislator.

“Whatever progress we are making at the VA, it isn’t fast enough and it isn’t thorough enough,” Cope said. He pointed to the most recent embarrassment – that the Veterans Affairs Secretary used public funds to take his wife on a trip to Europe with him – as an example of the continued need for housecleaning.

“I agree with those lawmakers calling for the secretary to step aside,” Cope said. “But that is only a first step. We need to shake this agency from top to bottom until it provides the quality care that we all want for our veterans.”

Cope said his reforms include the ability to quickly remove or terminate unprofessional or unproductive employees and opening the “captive market” of the VA to outside competition to force service improvements. He added that veterans should have the option of receiving private medical care at VA expense when the VA fails to provide timely service or when that care is recommended by outside physicians.

“The VA is only one aspect of the care that we need to be providing to those who have bravely served us,” Cope noted. He supports hiring preferences for veterans for federal employment opportunities wherever appropriate, and says as a Congressman, he will make sure his office staff includes a veterans ombudsman to be sure Sixth District veterans have their issues and opinions heard.

Cope is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and retired aerospace executive who is seeking the Congressional seat being vacated by Joe Barton. Information about the campaign and Cope's positions on other issues confronting the Sixth District can be found at the campaign website, http://www.CopeTexas.com, and the Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/copetexas.