Obama touts progress on medical care for veterans
President Obama on Tuesday touted his work on behalf of the nation’s veterans, looking to move beyond a scandal over medical care that rocked his administration last year.
“As a new generation of veterans comes home, we owe them every opportunity to live the American dream they helped defend,” the president said during his penultimate State of the Union address.
“Already, we’ve made strides toward ensuring that every veteran has access to the highest quality care,” he said.
{mosads}Eric Shinseki resigned as secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs last year over reports that patients at a department facility in Phoenix waited an average of 115 days for medical care, as employees at the VA sought to cover up the long waits.
The scandal led Congress to pass a $16.3 billion reform bill to overhaul the agency.
Obama said his administration is “slashing the backlog that had too many veterans waiting years to get the benefits they need.”
The VA has vowed to wipe out the late cases by the end of 2015, though it remains unclear if the agency will be able to succeed in accomplishing that goal.
It’s also unclear if Obama’s remarks will be enough to satisfy some of his GOP detractors.
House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) said he hoped the president would use Tuesday’s speech to “pledge his personal involvement in helping the [VA] overcome its many challenges.”
“Does the president even realize that in the wake of the department’s massive wait time scandal his VA has not fired a single executive for medical care wait time manipulation, or that his Department of Justice has not prosecuted a single VA employee in connection with the schemes?” Miller said in a statement. “Unless he addresses these problems head on, many in the veterans community will be left wondering.”
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