VA Officials Face Searing Questions from Lawmakers

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree: Veterans Affairs hospitals have been severely mismanaged, some say to the point of corruption.

But what many don't agree on is how to fix the problem.

In a late night sessio, House lawmakers grilled three senior VA officials Wednesday evening about a new report that exposed efforts by VA clinics to hide delays in treating veterans.

"When were these documents destroyed?" Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., asked the three officials.

Who all needs to be held accountable for this growing scandal? Verna Jones, director of the Veterans Affairs at The American Legion, answers this and more, following Lorie Johnson's report on CBN Newswatch, May 29.

At the Phoenix VA hospital, ground zero of the scandal, fake records designed to make the hospital look good indicate about 2,000 vets waited only 24 days to see a doctor. But secret records reveal those patients waited three months longer than that, an average of 115 days. 

"What I don't understand is how you can look at yourself in the mirror and shave in the morning and not throw up?" Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., said.

There's no proof the long wait times caused death, but many believe that's what happened.

"I had a broken hand and had to get X-rays on it and it took over a week to get in," Iraq War veteran Jon Goodman said about his experience at the VA hospital in Oklahoma. "By the time I got X-rays, the bone had already started healing."

Goodman said long wait times were just one of the common complaints among veterans seeking care.

"It takes a month or even longer to get an appointment," he said. "And then when you get there, your appointment is pushed back two hours or you have to go to Muskogee or your appointment gets cancelled without notification."

Some vets, like Sally Breen's father, never got the help they so desperately needed.

"They are at fault, why my dad is dead," she said.

Even a doctor at that hospital said he personally witnessed patients die.

"One was having chest pains and couldn't get in to see his doctor and died of a heart attack," Dr. Samuel Foot, from VA physician, said.

And it's not just Phoenix. Now 42 VA hospitals are being looked at. The problem is being described as systemic throughout the VA to the point where veterans "may never obtain their requested or required primary care."

Both Democrats and Republicans have demanded VA Secretary Eric Shinseki's resignation, with some calling for a criminal investigation.

"I believe that this issue has reached a level that requires the Justice Department involvement," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said.

But others say making him a scapegoat won't fix the VA.

"Is him resigning going to get us to the bottom of the problem?" Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, questioned. "Is it going to help us find out what's really going on? And the answer I keep giving is 'no'."