Republican leaders dismissed President Obama’s claims Wednesday evening that the Department of Veterans Affairs has increased accountability in the wake of a national wait-time manipulation scandal.
During a televised town hall event with CNN, Obama touted the VA’s efforts to remove officials who had hidden fake patient waiting lists at dozens of hospitals, creating long delays in care for veterans around the country.
“We have in fact fired a whole bunch of people who were in charge of some of these facilities,” Obama said.
However, according to records provided to Congress by the VA on Sept. 22 that were obtained by the Washington Examiner, only one VA hospital director has been removed from her position after engaging in wait-time manipulation.
That official, Sharon Helman of the Phoenix VA facility, was ultimately terminated due to her unauthorized acceptance of gifts, not for her handling of waiting lists.
Overall, just nine people have been fired for manipulating wait times, the New York Times reported last month.
“President Obama can’t seem to get his facts straight when it comes to VA accountability because — just like the department’s leaders — he is not at all focused on it,” Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, told the Examiner.
“Meanwhile, VA remains a place where whistleblower retaliation and wait-time manipulation are routinely tolerated, and problem employees, such as those who participate in armed robberies, are protected,” Miller added.
VA Secretary Bob McDonald has struggled to pinpoint how many employees have been purged from the VA’s ranks since he took over the agency in 2014 amid a nationwide scandal.
In January, for example, McDonald told the Senate VA Committee that 2,600 employees had been fired in the first 18 months of his tenure at the agency. A day earlier, he had put the number of fired workers at 2,400.
Although McDonald told the Senate on Sept. 14 that his agency had increased accountability because 3,755 firings had taken place during his tenure, GOP lawmakers noted that number actually represented a slower pace of firings than what occurred under his ousted predecessor, Eric Shinseki.
While the latest figure presented by McDonald boiled down to roughly 1,900 firings per fiscal year, Shinseki presided over 2,247 terminations during his final year in office.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus slammed Obama for “neglecting to fully resolve the horrific situation at the Department of Veterans Affairs” after the town hall event Wednesday evening. Donald Trump has repeatedly highlighted VA failures on the campaign trail as an example of the government ills he has vowed to fix.
Hillary Clinton, in turn, has accused Republicans of attempting to privatize the agency in a move that, she argues, would limit veterans’ access to care and services.
While no Republican officeholder has floated a full privatization plan, many GOP and Democratic lawmakers do support the Veterans Choice Act, which expands veterans’ ability to secure treatment from private doctors should they wish to bypass the VA system.
Obama alluded to the program Wednesday during the town hall as one of the reforms he hoped would alleviate the pressure on overburdened VA facilities.
Citing accountability legislation presently in the works, Miller said the VA’s controversies will continue until laws are changed to allow VA leaders to get rid of problematic employees without having to navigate a sea of red tape.
“That’s why it’s time for the president and his entire administration to get behind common-sense legislation like the House-passed VA Accountability First and Appeals Modernization Act, which would replace VA’s culture of complacency with a climate of accountability,” the Florida Republican said.
That bill passed the House on Sept. 14 with bipartisan support and is awaiting action in the Senate.
