On the recordJune 3, 2015
This week marks 1 year since the Veterans Affairs Secretary, Eric Shinseki, resigned amid a scandal that shook this country to its core. When President Obama reluctantly accepted Secretary Shinseki's resignation, he had a lot to say about his commitment to fix the VA and where the buck stops. He said: ``We're going to do right by our veterans across the board, as along as it takes.'' And then: ``This is my administration. I always take responsibility for whatever happens.'' Well, Mr. Speaker, a lot has happened over the past year, and here are some of the highlights: Last June, reports emerged that patient scheduling manipulation had been particularly egregious inside the central Alabama VA. During a meeting to discuss these findings, the director of the central Alabama VA led me to believe that appropriate action had been taken to remove the employees that were responsible for this. That wasn't true. So I began to dig a little bit deeper into the problems, working with very courageous whistleblowers and the press to uncover major instances of misconduct, negligence, and mismanagement inside the central Alabama VA. What we were able to expose was more than 1,000 patient x rays, some showing problems, went missing for months and years. A pulmonologist was called, not once but twice, for falsifying more than 1,200 patient records but somehow given a satisfactory review.…
