Eric Shinseki refuses to quit as veterans' healthcare scandal grows

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/15/eric-shinseki-healthcare-scandal-veterans

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Senior Democrats turned on the Obama administration's handling of a growing scandal over healthcare for military veterans, after cabinet secretary Eric Shinseki acknowledged there was already some evidence that waiting list data had been manipulated to hide patient backlogs.

As the White House dispatched its deputy chief of staff Rob Nabors to beef up an investigation into allegations of a systemic cover-up, Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal called for the FBI to pursue possible criminal behaviour.

During a stormy Senate committee hearing which saw scathing and bipartisan criticism, he was joined by Patty Murray of Washington, who claimed “standard practice at the VA seems to be to hide the truth in order to look good”.

Veterans affairs secretary Shinseki insisted the alleged cover-ups at veterans hospitals made him “mad as hell”, but refused to resign, saying it was up to the commander-in-chief to sack him. He urged critics to wait for the completion of an independent report.

The scandal has spiralled rapidly in recent days as allegations that 40 veterans at a Phoenix hospital died while waiting for care have been compounded by evidence that officials deliberately manipulated data to hide the size of the waiting list to avoid breaching internal rules.

More than 10m US veterans are covered by the public healthcare system, which has been strained by the admission of 2m new patients since 2009 following the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and recognition of new post-traumatic stress cases and Agent Orange victims from the Vietnam war.

Backlogs and staff shortages have long been seized upon by veterans groups lobbying for more resources, but it is the apparent cover up of the scale of the problem that has transformed these latest complaints into a growing political problem for the White House.

While agreeing that conclusions on the specific case in Phoenix should be left until the conclusion of an inspector general report, Shinseki admitted there were signs of more systemic problems.

“The IG is going to get to the bottom of [Phoenix], but we are trying to address broader problems and we have begun to see evidence of people coming forward and saying there is an issue here,” he told the Senate committee.

Asked if there was widespread “cooking of the books”, he added “I am not aware [of it] other than in isolated cases where there is evidence, but the fact there is evidence in a couple of cases behoves us to have a look”.

Committee chairman Bernie Sanders was a lone voice in Thursday's hearing urging critics to wait for the Phoenix report before “rushing to judgement” and stressing the need to put it into the context of a US healthcare system where many have no insurance cover at all.

“When you are dealing with [this many] people, even if you were the best health institution in the world, there would be thousands who would say they are unhappy,” he said.

“There is no question in my mind that VA healthcare has problems, serious problems, but it is not the case that the rest of healthcare in America is perfect.”

But the story of officials manipulating patient records to hide embarrassing data, which was first pursued aggressively by CNN, is quickly garnering critics among normally loyal Obama supporters in the Senate.

Murray, who also chairs the budget committee, said: “Gaming [the system] is so prevalent that as soon as new directives are put out they are torn apart to find new ways around them.”

“Immediately the Phoenix story broke, I was outraged, but now it is becoming a systematic issue... it is unbelievable what we have seen over the last few weeks,” added Mark Begich of Alaska.

Blumenthal said: “I agree we should avoid a rush to judgment but we have more than allegations at this point, we have a evidence. .. pattern and practice of manipulating lists, gaming the system in effect, and cooking the books, that is not just an impropriety but potentially a criminal act.”

Senior Republicans, who have previously been slow to side with veterans lobbyists on the issue, went further still.

Arizona senator John McCain, who is not a member of the committee but joined it to make an unusual personal statement, said there was a “crisis of confidence” among veterans and said the VA “department appears riddled with systemic problems”.

Asked by senator Dean Heller why he shouldn't resign, Shinseki, a former general who served as army chief of staff, responded: “I intend to continue this mission until I am told by the commander in chief that my time has been served”