Reid promises ‘immediate work’ on VA problems

WASHINGTON — Sen. Harry Reid promised on Thursday the Senate will get to work immediately on “appropriate legislation” to fix problems at the Department of Veterans Affairs, but was silent on whether beleaguered agency chief Eric Shinseki should be part of the solution.

Reid did not mention the Cabinet secretary in a statement Thursday, a day after the VA inspector general released an interim audit confirming that at least 1,700 patients at the VA’s hospital in Phoenix never were scheduled for appointments and may have been “lost or forgotten” in its electronic scheduling system.

Investigators said patients at the Arizona facility waited on average 115 days to see a doctor — five times longer than what the hospital had reported to superiors — and that long delays in providing care were “systemic” within the VA. Richard Griffin, the acting inspector general, said 42 medical centers are under investigation, with some facing allegations they manipulated records to hide long wait times.

“There is no question that what the Inspector General’s report found is reprehensible and unacceptable,” Reid said in a statement issued from Las Vegas while the Senate is out of session this week. “But the problems with the VA are systemic and deep-seated, and must not be tolerated.

“To restore veterans’ trust in the reliability of VA health care, we must take action to address the root causes of these problems. Millions of American service members are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan and entering the VA system, and that system needs more resources to provide them the best care,” Reid said.

“When the Senate returns, the Veterans Affairs Committee will immediately work on the appropriate legislation to address these deeply rooted problems,” Reid said.

Reid in previous remarks as recently as Tuesday said he did not think it would be helpful to fire Shinseki, a retired four-star general who has led the VA ever since Barack Obama became president in 2009. In his silence on Thursday he did not change his position but neither did he repeat his endorsement.

The Senate majority leader had a telephone conversation with Shinseki on Thursday, Reid’s office confirmed. Details were not immediately available.

Elsewhere on Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also kept their powder dry on Shinseki.

“I’m going to continue to reserve judgment on Gen. Shinseki,” Boehner told reporters. “The question I ask myself: Is him resigning going to get us to the bottom of the problem? Is it going to help us find out what’s really going on? The answer I keep getting is no.”

“I have a high regard for the secretary,” Pelosi said. “He honors our country with his service. It’s easy to call for someone at the top to go. Is it a solution? Is it an answer? That remains to be seen.”

But calls for the VA secretary to step aside have increased since the release of the inspector general’s report, including among Democratic senators who are up for re-election this year.

In Nevada, Republican Sen. Dean Heller has called on Shinseki to step aside.

When the Senate returns to work next week, Sen. Bernard Sanders, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, has said he will introduce legislation to address VA flaws. He has spent this week consulting with the White House over the measure.

Sanders, an independent from Vermont, said the bill would give VA secretaries the power to remove senior executives for poor performance, similar to a bill that passed the House last week. But Sanders said his bill also would include due process protections for officials who face firing or demotion.

Sanders said he also planned to reintroduce a broader veterans medical, education and job training bill that failed to overcome a Republican filibuster in February over how the $21 billion measure would be paid for.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760. Find him on Twitter: @STetreaultDC.