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Veterans Affair Secretary Called to Be Fired Amid Hospitals Scandal


By The Associated PressVA

 

WASHINGTON (AP) – The growing furor over veterans’ health care moved to political campaigns Thursday as congressional candidates from both parties called for Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to be fired.

Among those calling for Shinseki’s removal amid investigations of VA patients dying while awaiting treatment and falsified appointment records was Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is challenging Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.

Democrat Rick Weiland, who is running for South Dakota’s open Senate seat, also called for Shinseki’s ouster, as did a Democrat running for an open House seat in New Jersey and two Republicans challenging vulnerable Democrats in northern Minnesota House districts.

“We owe a solemn obligation to our veterans, and our government defaulted on that contract,” Grimes said in a statement Thursday. “I don’t see how that breach of trust with our veterans can be repaired if the current leadership stays in place.”

Grimes has tried to distance herself at times from President Barack Obama, who is largely unpopular in her state, and she demonstrated her independence by calling for a cabinet member’s removal.

McConnell said earlier this week that the predicament at the VA was “a management problem, not a money problem,” adding, “it’s obvious that the management team needs to be changed.”

McConnell campaign spokeswoman Allison Moore said the campaign was pleased Grimes had joined in calling for a change in VA management. Moore criticized Senate Democrats for blocking a House-passed bill that would have made it easier to fire or demote senior VA executives.

Senate Democrats said they are working on their own legislation to make it easier to fire or demote executives at VA.

“I think what the House has done is not unreasonable,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters Thursday, adding that he is confident the Senate will act quickly on a measure being pushed by Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

The political maneuvering came as the Senate Appropriations Committee added language to a military construction spending bill that echoed the House bill. Florida’s two senators, Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Marco Rubio, co-sponsored a bill to give the VA secretary broader authority to remove low-performing senior executives.

“The veterans are not getting the medical care, the treatment that they need,” said Nelson, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Some heads need to roll.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney, meanwhile, said Thursday the Obama administration supports the goal of the House bill, but added, “We do have some concerns that some provisions could result in significant litigation which would divert valuable time and resources from VA’s accountability efforts and its core mission of delivering quality services to our veterans.”

The administration is working with Congress on better language, Carney told reporters.

After weeks of criticism for his detached response, Obama showed new resolve this week on the growing crisis over veterans’ health care.

Obama called Shinseki to a White House meeting Wednesday and then repeatedly vowed to take action at a news conference at the White House. Obama also dispatched a senior aide, deputy chief of staff Rob Nabors, to Phoenix to meet with staff at the hospital that is at the center of allegations of treatment delays and falsified reports at VA medical facilities.

Obama had remained publicly silent on the veterans issue for three weeks, even as he assigned Nabors to oversee a review of VA health care and sent chief of staff Denis McDonough to Capitol Hill to reassure anxious lawmakers.

The inspector general at the Veterans Affairs Department says 26 VA facilities are being investigated nationwide, including the Phoenix hospital. That facility faces allegations that 40 people died while waiting for treatment and that the staff there kept a secret list of patients in order to hide delays in care.

The allegations have raised fresh concerns about the administration’s management of a department that has been struggling to keep up with the influx of veterans returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Vietnam veterans needing more care as they age.

The current director of the Phoenix VA Health Care System, Sharon Helman, has been placed on leave while the VA’s inspector general investigates claims raised by several former VA employees.

In the South Dakota Senate campaign, Weiland forcefully called for Shinseki to step down. But he also criticized House Republicans for temporarily shutting down much of the government last year.

“Anyone who does not understand that it is the penny-pinching stupidity and arrogance of the ‘shut it down’ politicians in Congress that is the real problem is either blind or willfully ignorant,” Weiland said in a statement Thursday.

Among the Republicans calling for Shinseki’s resignation is Mike McFadden, who hopes to take on Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.

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4 Responses to "Veterans Affair Secretary Called to Be Fired Amid Hospitals Scandal"

  1. Chandler  May 24, 2014 at 9:26 pm

    Firing this man will do no good. The firing will not change anything. It will serve only to scapegoat him for the entire mess. Th entire system is what Oblundercare is going to be in only a few months to 1 or 2 years. Government is too big to handle our healthcare. Medicare did not exclude physicians. Did not change their titles from Doctors, to “Providers.” Oblundercare is going to flop.
    At the VA, there is a prevalent mindset that makes for a toxic environment. Staff is complacent, doctors uncaring, ill-concerned. No accountability whatsoever.
    The entire system needs changed not just one man. of course NOT all people are lackluster, but the ones who do try don’t last long.
    I’llnever for et Nancy Pelosi telling us all about the Oblundercare bill. She said, “You have to pass the bill in order to find it what is inside.” Now we are strapped with a huge problem just like the VA hospital fiasco.
    The government has no power unless We the People… give it to them. The fault lays with us, the citizens. We are far too complacent, and accepting of this government tell us. Not all VA’s are pathetic, and not all staff are lazy. The entire system needs a massive overhaul.
    Government is no longer hearing the people. The future is not promising once the people awaken and begin demanding better service hear at home and less money going overseas to people who hate us.

  2. NortonSmitty  May 23, 2014 at 7:36 pm

    PLEASE wake up people! Including you VT. This is the obvious pre-planned salvo of outrage to kill the VA as a stand alone agency dedicated to Veterans and paid for by the Defense Department as a means of payback for the sacrifices we gave to our chosen branch. It is funded out of the Defense Construction Fund to the tune of about $180 Billion a year. With the recent sequesters and such, the DOD and it’s warmongering corporate owners see that as cutting into their profits. Add that to the money to be made if we convince us Sheeple that we would be better off if we privatized the VA and all got vouchers to go buy private insurance, and it’s easy to see their agenda and the manufactured outrage we are swallowing.

    I saw this coming a few months ago, when the latest shooting at Fort Hood was trumpeted on all of the media outlets as a failure of the VA to properly treat the damaged soldier. No one corrected them that this man was an active duty soldier and had nothing to do with the VA. And today, we are reminded that Obama promised to correct the problems at Walter Reed Army Hospital and didn’t Again, nothing to do with the VA, its an active duty facility. Let me give you some Bullet Points to consider

    1.- Why has nobody on the Left or Right said that Veterans are more satisfied with their care by 10 points over those with private insurance?
    2.- Why are we told the long wait to recieve care is the initial application. Where by law non-service connected applicants must qualify for help according to a means test. Which means looking at your finances and such. If you listen to the propaganda, you would think ALL veterans are entitled to free medical care for life. We know this is not true.

    There are many other points I could bring up, but you get the drift. This is not an agenda being pushed by people who have our best interests at heart, it is pushed by folks who what to take our benefits from us to enrich themselves. Don’t fall for it.

    • 2speaknow  May 23, 2014 at 11:46 pm

      I see this as a wakeup call for us to audit the IRS, and the politicians, and the defense department to find out where all of our money is going!!! End the senseless wars of pillage and profit and stop the power grab of the military industrial complex bomb and weapons manufacturers/banksters that want nothing but death and destruction around the world. Cut off the money to the weapons manufacturers- And give it to the veterans. Shame on all you cowardly whores in Washington that run around and suck up to the money for your campaigns so you can profit off the backs of innocent boys you send to fight your wars. War should be made illegal and NO ONE should receive ANY profit, ever!!! You DC idiots don’t know how to make friends so you have to kill people to get your way!! You should be following the God of PEACE, NOT war. If war is your agenda, you follow Satan.

  3. johnph  May 23, 2014 at 3:06 pm

    Oh boy, This will help us Veterans! All of Washington now is to fight over the Vets. Nothing will be done this way. The same old material as always. The whole VA must be fix just not the medical side of it but also the Benefits side too. We talk to these regional Offices all the time and what they say about the Congress and senate. They think that Sen. Burr NC is a joke. They don’t listen to anyone but who is in charge of them not both houses. The VA motto is catching on with other Vets.
    VA MOTTO Deny, Deny, Delay, Delay until they DIE!

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