VA Secretary Faced Withering Criticism For Crisis At VA Hospitals | WSJ: Little Progress At VA

As shared yesterday, #SAVEOURVETS
Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony Branco

Today in Washington, D.C. - May 15, 2014
The Senate reconvened at 9:30 AM today. At 11:15, the Senate voted to invoke cloture on 3 more Arizona district judge nominations. Democrats again used the precedent they established when they used the nuclear option to break Senate rules and allow nominees to achieve cloture with fewer than 60 votes.

Senators then confirmed Leslie Caldwell to be an Assistant Attorney General and Helen La Lime to be Ambassador to the Republic of Angola by voice votes. The Senate then recessed until 1:45 PM for caucus lunches.

The House will reconvene at 2 PM for a few minutes and then recess until Monday, May 19, 2014, at Noon.

Today, the Senate Banking Committee approved S. 1217, the Housing Finance Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013, by a bipartisan vote of 13-9. The legislation which now goes to the full Senate winds down and eliminates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and allows for a diverse set of private entities to step in and replace most of the functions of the government sponsored enterprises. The new system will be regulated by the modernized and streamlined Federal Mortgage Insurance Corporation (FMIC), modeled in part after the FDIC. It also creates a reinsurance fund, known as the Mortgage Insurance Fund, to protect taxpayers. The new system establishes a type of mortgage-backed security with an explicit government backstop and 10% first loss private secondary-market capital to absorb losses and protect taxpayers from future bailouts.

However, fiscal conservatives are objecting to the bill pledging the the full faith and credit of the United States to the payment of all amounts from the Mortgage Insurance Fund which may be required to be paid under any insurance provided under the provisions covered by this bill. Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement in opposition to S. 1217, the "Housing Finance Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013:"At the heart of the financial crisis was the federal government's implicit guarantee of mortgages to lenders. That guarantee ensured if the debts went bad, taxpayers or the central bank would step in to cover the losses. The Johnson-Crapo bill doubles down on this mistake that encouraged risky lending, making explicit a guarantee that taxpayers were previously promised they would never have to cover in the first place. Incredibly, supporters of the legislation claim it somehow protects taxpayers. Nothing could be further from the truth, as it puts the full faith and credit of the U.S. government at risk — again.

"Moreover, the legislation contemplates a mortgage insurance fund for all conventional mortgages that lenders would be required to pay into — costs that will undoubtedly be passed along to borrowers. Therefore, whether via personal mortgage insurance premiums or higher closing costs, even if borrowers put 20 percent down, under the Senate bill they should plan on paying even more to own a home.

"The Senate should reject the flawed Johnson-Crapo approach, which neither reforms housing finance nor protects taxpayers. It cannot truly create a private market for housing finance when the Treasury and taxpayers are still on the hook."CNN reports, “Under withering criticism, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki told a Senate committee on Thursday he was ‘mad as hell’ about allegations of deadly waiting times and coverup at VA hospitals but he doesn't plan to resign. . . . Noting an inspector general's investigation was already under way, Shinseki said that ‘we will act’ on any substantiated allegation, an assurance that angered senators from both parties who insisted the problems are real and need immediate action. . . . Last month, CNN revealed that at least 40 veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system, according to sources inside the hospital and a doctor who worked there. Many of those veterans were placed on a secret waiting list, the sources said. Since November, CNN has uncovered delays in care at VA facilities across the country where numerous VA staffers have stepped forward to allege dangerously long wait times and efforts by agency officials to cover them up. Pressure is mounting on President Barack Obama to fire Shinseki. On Wednesday, Obama appointed a top aide to work with the embattled Cabinet secretary to review the situation. Senators opened the hearing by calling for changes to fix scheduling and care problems that they said have been known for more than a year. ‘VA senior leadership, including the secretary, should have been aware that the VA is facing a national scheduling crisis,’ Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina said, adding that the problem caused ‘harm and death.’”

But, The Wall Street Journal reported last night, “Debra Draper, head of health care for the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency that works for Congress, said in an interview the VA has not made any appreciable changes in a variety of appointment-scheduling procedures since the office's last official report in 2012, and any changes that have been made haven't been independently verified. ‘They've made minimal progress at best,’ Ms. Draper said. Ms. Draper said that when the GAO inspected four separate medical centers for the 2012 report, all had problems with scheduling procedures. At the heart of the VA's scheduling procedure is a software system inaugurated a year after Steve Jobs unveiled the first Macintosh computer in 1984. It has been repeatedly patched, but never completely overhauled. It still allows schedulers to omit basic things like when a patient first requests a visit. It also lacks the ability to oversee the system as a whole, beyond individual VA medical systems scattered across the country, the GAO says.”

CNN adds, “The VA has previously admitted that 23 veterans died because of delays, and 53 others had adverse health effects at VA facilities across the country. Sources now tell CNN the inspector general is investigating in six states, including Arizona. . . . But even as the Phoenix VA's problems have riveted the nation's attention, numerous whistleblowers from other VA hospitals across the country have stepped forward in recent weeks. They described similar delays in care for veterans and also varying schemes by officials at those facilities to hide the delays -- in some cases even falsify records or ‘cook the books.’”

Speaking on the Senate floor this morning about this crisis, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “In the wake of those reports [from Arizona], similar stories from Wyoming, North Carolina, Missouri, and Texas have come to light about employees using similar tactics to conceal backlogs in medical care. . . . One thing I will be listening for today is whether or not Secretary Shinseki states a belief that the V.A. is facing a systemic crisis. Because, just this morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that his department has made, quote, ‘minimal progress at best’ on a host of problems identified in 2012 by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office. Last year I called the Obama Administration’s veterans backlog a national disgrace. I’ve also made several appeals to Secretary Shinseki – I know I wasn’t the only one. And yet, the initial reports of the shocking situation in Phoenix indicate that things have only gotten worse. With similar stories now filtering in from other parts of the country, it’s getting harder to believe this isn’t more of a systemic, Administration-wide crisis. The Veterans Administration needs to get to the bottom of how widespread the problem has become.”

He emphasized, “My concern is that the Obama Administration will treat this scandal like it does all the others like a political crisis to get past rather than a serious problem to be solved. We know he appointed a member of his staff yesterday to look into it. That’s a start. But if the President is truly serious, he needs to treat these stories at least as seriously as he did the Obamacare website fiasco. When he pledged his complete attention and the full force of his Administration to do whatever needed to be done. When he let it be known that his people would not rest until a solution could be worked out. Incredibly, so far the President has made no such pledge when it comes to the treatment of our veterans. The President needs to understand that our veterans deserve at least as much attention as a website. In fact, they deserve a whole heck of a lot more.

“This is a big deal. And it’s our job as Senators to get to the bottom of it. We need to ask the tough questions. We need to uncover the truth. Any misconduct found at V.A. hospitals should be met with swift punishment. And administration officials need to be held accountable. Because America’s ill and wounded veterans have already paid a price. They have a right to expect that our country will be there when they need help. . . . So our joint mission, whether we’re Democrats or Republicans, should be to get to the bottom of the Obama Administration’s veterans crisis swiftly – and fix it.”

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