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Obama Turning To Ex-Procter & Gamble Boss For Veterans Affairs Job

Obama Turning To Ex-Procter & Gamble Boss For Veterans Affairs Job

By Richard Simon, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — In nominating Bob McDonald as the next secretary of Veterans Affairs, President Barack Obama is recruiting a West Point graduate with experience in running a big corporation — Procter & Gamble — to turn around a department whose failure to provide timely care to veterans has caused a political furor.

If confirmed by the Senate, McDonald would succeed Eric K. Shinseki, a retired four-star general who stepped down last month amid a scandal in which VA employees falsified records to cover up long waits for medical appointments.

McDonald would face a daunting task in trying to fix the numerous problems within one of the largest federal departments, which a White House report described as having a “corrosive culture.” The VA also is struggling to respond to increasing demand for services from veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A White House official signaled that Obama would nominate McDonald, 61, on Monday, saying the former corporate executive’s 33-year tenure at Procter & Gamble “prepares him well for a huge agency with management challenges in servicing more than 8 million veterans a year.”

At P&G, McDonald oversaw more than 120,000 employees, the official noted, adding that business associates have described him as a “master at complex operations.”

McDonald served in the Army for five years, achieving the rank of captain in the 82nd Airborne Division, according to the White House. He retired from P&G in June 2013 and lives in Cincinnati.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, planned to meet with McDonald next week.

Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said McDonald faced the challenge of turning around a VA “under a specter of corruption that may very well surpass anything in the history of American government.”

Investigators are examining whether VA managers pressed subordinates to manipulate waiting lists for appointments so that the managers could qualify for bonuses. The investigation could lead to criminal charges.

Miller said the next secretary would need to “root out the culture of dishonesty and fraud that has taken hold within the department and is contributing to all of its most pressing challenges. Quite simply, those who created the VA scandal will need to be purged from the system.”

Miller, who has complained about the VA’s failure to respond to his committee’s requests for information, said the next secretary also would need to focus on “solving problems instead of downplaying or hiding them, holding employees accountable for mismanagement and negligence that harms veterans, and understanding that taxpayer-funded organizations such as VA have a responsibility to provide information to Congress and the public rather than stonewalling them.”

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said in a statement that although McDonald is “capable of implementing the kind of dramatic systemic change that is badly needed and long overdue at the VA,” he would only succeed if the president “commits to doing whatever it takes to give our veterans the world-class health care system they deserve by articulating a vision for sweeping reform.”

Born in Gary, Ind., and raised in the Chicago area, McDonald led P&G from 2009 to 2013. During that time, P&G’s annual sales exceeded $84 billion, according to the company, and its stock price rose from $51.10 on the day he became chief executive to close at $81.64 on the day his last quarterly results were announced — a 60 percent increase.

Dan Dellinger, national commander of the 2.4-million-member American Legion, said he was encouraged to hear that Obama planned to nominate a new VA leader.

“The VA needs a permanent secretary as soon as possible to oversee the restructuring necessary to guarantee that our veterans receive the care they have earned in a timely manner,” he said.
The VA, which operates 1,700 hospitals and clinics and handled 85 million outpatient visits last year, has been rocked by a spate of critical reports.

Last month the VA inspector general found systemic problems throughout the VA health care system in scheduling veterans for medical appointments in a timely manner, including instances of manipulation to mask long waits. At the Phoenix VA, investigators found an average wait of 115 days for a sample of veterans, when the VA’s goal was 14 days.

Last week, the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates whistle-blower complaints, assailed the VA for failing to acknowledge the “severity of systemic problems” that have put patients at risk.

And on Friday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors, who has been visiting VA facilities, issued his own report, finding a “corrosive culture” inside the department that has been exacerbated by poor management and a history of retaliation toward employees who report problems.

The department’s inspector general is investigating 77 facilities and is due to issue a final report in August.

In the meantime, House-Senate negotiators are working to reconcile differences on legislation that would allow more veterans facing long waits at VA facilities to see private doctors and expand the VA secretary’s authority to fire senior managers for poor performance. A potentially contentious proposal would increase VA funding so that it could hire more doctors and nurses.

Kathleen Hennessey in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

AFP Photo / Stephen Chernin

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In VA Scandal, Let’s Have Accountability For All — Including Congress

In VA Scandal, Let’s Have Accountability For All — Including Congress

While Congress eagerly prepares its latest political stunt – a resolution to oust Gen. Eric Shinseki as Veterans Affairs Secretary – members might want to consider their own responsibility for the scandalous inadequacy of veterans’ health care. Unlike most of them, especially on the Republican side, Shinseki opposed the incompetent war plans of the Bush administration that left so many American service men and women grievously wounded. And unlike most of them, especially on the Republican side, Shinseki has done much to reduce the backlog of veterans seeking care, despite the congressional failure to provide sufficient funding.

Anyone paying attention knows by now that those secret waiting lists at VA facilities – which may have led to the premature deaths of scores of injured veterans – are a direct consequence of policy decisions made in the White House years before Barack Obama got there. The misguided invasion of Iraq, carried out with insufficient numbers of troops shielded by insufficient armor, led directly to thousands of new cases of traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other physical and mental illnesses requiring speedy treatment.

A substantial portion of the estimated three-trillion-dollar price of that war is represented by the cost of decent care for veterans. But even as that war raged on, the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress repeatedly refused to appropriate sufficient funding for VA health care. This financial stinginess toward vets was consistent with Bush’s refusal to take any steps to pay for his expensive war (and to protect his skewed tax cuts instead). As Alec McGillis explained in The New Republic, legislators who voted for war while opposing expansion of the VA are hypocrites, particularly when they claim to care about veterans.  So are the Republican governors who claim to care about vets but refuse to expand Medicaid, which would provide coverage for more than 250,000 impoverished veterans.

Breaking down the voting record, year after year, the pattern along party lines is clear: Republicans regularly seek cuts in VA funding and oppose Democratic efforts to increase that funding — a pattern that extends back to the first years of the Iraq and Afghan conflicts and continues to this day. As recently as last February, Senate Republicans filibustered a Democratic bill that would have added $20 billion in VA funding over the next decade, which would have built at least 26 new VA health care facilities. The Republicans killed that bill because Democratic leaders refused to add an amendment on Iran sanctions – designed to scuttle the ongoing nuclear negotiations – and because they just don’t want to spend more money on vets. Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who chairs the Veterans Affairs Committee, said the costs of the expansion bill would be covered by savings from the end of troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. But with cruel irony, according to TheWashington Post, “Republicans indicated that they prefer to dedicate the savings toward deficit reduction” rather than improved services.

What those who have served should get is the kind of care that has made the VA among the most successful health systems in the world (for those who can access its services). Instead they will get political swaggering, as members of Congress seek to score points against President Obama by attacking Shinseki, and dogmatic opportunism, as right-wing ideologues insist the VA is just another big government program to cut or even abolish. The Republicans who are susceptible to such proposals should be very careful, lest they arouse the anger of the normally conservative American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, whose leaders react with anger and outrage to the idea of privatization. As American Legion commander Dan Dellinger said in congressional testimony last week, his organization overwhelmingly “finds that veterans are extremely satisfied with their health care team and medical providers.”

So let’s not be misled about the VA by Washington’s loudmouths and poseurs — the warmongers who never face up to the price of their enthusiasm in lives and treasure. When politicians demand accountability from their betters, including a war hero like Eric Shinseki, let’s remember that they should be held accountable, too.

AFP Photo/Saul Loeb

Congress Boosts Funding As Investigation Of VA Widens

Congress Boosts Funding As Investigation Of VA Widens

By Richard Simon, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — Stepping up Congress’ efforts to root out misconduct at the Department of Veterans Affairs, lawmakers Thursday moved to boost funding for a nationwide investigation into whether VA employees covered up long waits for medical care and authorize subpoenas of VA officials to produce records and appear at a Capitol Hill hearing next week.

Even as a growing number of Republicans and some Democrats have called for his resignation, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki was on Capitol Hill on Thursday meeting with the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois.

A resolution also has been introduced seeking a House vote calling for Shinseki’s resignation.

The Senate Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, approved a VA spending bill that would provide an additional $5 million for a VA inspector general’s investigation, give the VA secretary give new authority to fire or demote employees, and freezes bonuses to senior VA employees until the review is complete and reforms have been implemented.

“We really have come to a point where we need to have more than just good intentions,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “What we need from the VA right now is decisive action.”

“This kind of reported misconduct at the VA is unforgivable. It is unacceptable. And, it is just plain wrong,” added Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the appropriations committee’s top Republican.

The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee scheduled a hearing for Wednesday on the reports of excessive wait times and falsification of records at VA health facilities and voted to authorize subpoenas to VA officials, “given the VA’s continued pattern of stonewalling,” as chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., put it.

A VA spokesman said the department is “committed” to working with the committee, noting that it had provided more than 3,000 pages of documents.

The VA did not send anyone to Thursday’s House Veterans Committee’s 9 a.m. meeting because it only received the request at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

VA officials summoned to appear before the committee are Joan Mooney, assistant secretary for congressional and legislative affairs; Dr. Thomas Lynch, assistant deputy undersecretary for health for clinical operations and management; and Michael Huff, congressional relations officer.

If they fail to voluntarily appear, the subpoena will require them to show up May 30.

Photo: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs via Flickr

Obama ‘Madder Than Hell’ At Allegations Of Poor Care For Veterans

Obama ‘Madder Than Hell’ At Allegations Of Poor Care For Veterans

By Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times

With pressure mounting over the Veterans Affairs scandal, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said Sunday that President Barack Obama was “madder than hell” over allegations of inadequate medical care for veterans.

Although McDonough voiced confidence in embattled VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki’s ability to resolve the matter, he stopped short of offering a full vote of confidence. Shinseki faces numerous calls to step down after complaints about long waiting times for treatment at VA medical facilities in several cities and attempts by VA employees to cover up the delays.

“Gen. Shinseki continues to work this every single day,” McDonough said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And he will continue to work these issues until they’re fixed.”

Asked if Shinseki had the “full confidence” of the president, McDonough avoided the question, saying only that Obama expected Shinseki to continue working to address the problems.

“The president is madder than hell, and I’ve got the scars to prove it,” he said. “We’re going to get to the bottom of those things, fix them and ensure that they don’t happen again.”

Last week, Shinseki testified before Congress that he was “mad as hell” over reports of excessive waiting times for veterans and falsification of records.

McDonough said the White House has deployed additional staff at the VA to examine whether the problems are a “series of isolated cases or whether this is a systemic issue that we need to address with wholesale reform.”

On the same program, American Legion National Commander Daniel Dellinger, who has called for Shinseki to step down, expressed disappointment in the White House response.

“We realize that the administration has done a lot for the veterans, but that isn’t the issue,” Dellinger said. “The issue is we’re having veterans die waiting for the care that they’ve earned. … And we hold Secretary Shinseki to the highest standards here. He should be coming forward with the same leadership he showed in the military as a four-star general into the VA. And it just hasn’t happened.”

Cosmic Smudge via Flickr