Sen. John McCain is demanding a complete overhaul of the embattled Veterans Affairs Department — even as President Obama’s appointee to lead the agency, Eric Shinseki, ignores calls for his resignation.
“What’s needed is a total refocusing of the VA on its core mission of serving veterans — stretching from its top political leadership all the way through to its career civil servants,” McCain, a former Vietnam War POW, said Saturday.
Veterans Affairs, which oversees 152 medical centers, for weeks has been embroiled in a scandal centered on its lengthy patient wait times, indifference to veterans’ suffering and bloated bureaucracy.
Vets have complained for years about long waits for appointments and subpar service at VA hospitals. But recent allegations of preventable deaths that may be linked to delays at the Phoenix VA hospital catapulted the agency’s shortcomings into the national spotlight.
As many as 40 veterans died while awaiting treatment at the Phoenix VA, even as hospital staff kept a secret appointment list to mask the delays, one former clinic director said. Problems also have been reported at VAs in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Missouri, Texas, Florida and Wyoming.
VA managers who received bonuses — even as veterans were stuck on long hospital waiting lists — have been “motivated by all the wrong incentives and rewards,” said McCain (R-Ariz.).
He stressed that Congress has the power to hire and fire those responsible for taking care of veterans, but stopped short of calling for Shinseki to step down.
Other critics — like Sen. John Cornyn of Texas — haven’t been as shy.
“[Shinseki’s] reticence to hold fellow bureaucrats at the VA accountable is exactly why we need new leadership that is willing to take swift action to ensure we are living up to our promises to our nation’s heroes,” Cornyn said.
The American Legion, one of the nation’s largest veterans groups, also has called on Shinseki to quit.
Shinseki told senators he was “mad as hell” about the allegations in Phoenix during a four-hour hearing of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs on Thursday.
Robert Petzel, the VA’s undersecretary for health care who also answered questions at the hearing, resigned his post the next day — even though he was scheduled to retire later this year.