Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise to stand with veterans throughout the country and offer a simple amendment that seeks to prohibit funds in this bill from being used to create or maintain any unofficial recordkeeping system at the Department of Veterans Affairs. As many of you know, numerous news reports have surfaced that assert that the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care System has been using secondary, unofficial records of veterans' claims and appointment requests. These allegations claim that the reasoning behind these actions was to misrepresent the actual wait times the veterans faced as they sought health care. A whistleblower has come forward and alleged the facility was taking the vets' application information, transcribing that information to an unofficial shared document, and only putting veterans' information and requests into the real system when they knew that the veterans were likely to receive an appointment within a 2-week timeframe. If true, on paper, the VA central office here in Washington would be under the impression that the wait time goals for appointments were being met. According to reports, veterans were waiting for months and months on end. The House Veterans' Affairs Committee is conducting an investigation into the matter and so far has said as many as 40 veterans suffered and died while waiting for appointments through the Phoenix VA system. Their investigation is ongoing, and they fear there could be many more deaths as a result of this negligence.…”