WASHINGTON–Senator Jerry Moran, a member of the Senate Veteran’s Affairs Committee made these opening statement’s during Thursday morning’s”State of VA Health Care” hearing with Sec. Shinseki

 

 

Moran told Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Eric Shinseki that he believes the “nationwide, face-to-face audit” of the VA system Sec. Shinseki announced last week is simply damage control, and not truly a comprehensive and sincere look at the magnitude of the problems at hand.

Shinseki said he hopes to have a preliminary report within three weeks on how widespread treatment delays and falsified patient scheduling reports are at VA facilities nationwide, following allegations that up to 40 veterans may have died while awaiting treatment at the Phoenix VA center.

Shinseki resisted calls from a Democratic senator to bring in the Justice Department and FBI for a criminal investigation since there’s evidence of VA employees making potentially false statements to the federal government. Shinseki said he first wanted to see results of the audit and a report on the VA inspector general’s office on its investigation of the Phoenix hospital.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said there appears to be “evidence of a crime” by some VA employees.

—Matthew Daly, Associated Press contributed to this report.