v.a. is not telling the truth about wait times. none of it. the office of inspector general says the same thing. it was that way in 2014 when reported on the wait time scandal. it is that way in 2017. cannot trust the v.a. s information. just this march a damming v.a. inspector general report on seven medical centers found patients waited an average of 61 days for specialty care. two months and the report found many patients in specialty care services experienced long wait times which were not accurately calculated. the wait times were being manipulated, in other words. one of multiple examples, a mental health patient seeking care. the electronic scheduling system showed a zero day wait time when the veteran actually waited 120
exactly. there were v.a. employees that were zeroing out wait times in order to earn performance bonuses or appease managers. are we pretty certain that now we have a realistic picture at least on how bad things are or is there still folks cooking the books as far as you all can tell? we haven t seen any evidence that there are still folk cooking the books but we have seen a gap between what veterans perceive their wait types to be and what v.a. reports they are. and that s a credit to the way the v.a. measures wait times and also an aging or old and out of date scheduling system. imagine a government facility being old and out of date. i will not stand for it, not as commander in chief, said president obama. has the top echelon of this administration done enough to focus on this problem and to try to fix it or is it simply too bill big or do they simply not care in your mind?
strong talent for the future and that we re retaining and developing people that can become store managers and do great things within the company. i ve been there, you know since i got out of graduate school. walmart presents opportunity for people. it s a ladder so the way we think about it is we want to make sure that our starting wage rate is positioned in a place where people are attracted to the company because they want to have an opportunity to do more. a store manager makes a nice salary. maybe some day one of them can do my job. it s not just about where we start but it s also about how we train, develop people, the opportunities we give them to take on more responsibility. we re also changing how our scheduling system works to create an environment such that that opportunity comes to life. so were you unable to find the talented people that you were looking for? i mean i know you had jobs available, but you couldn t find the people with the right skill set so you figured le
can. the second thing in character is this importance of doing the harder right rather than the easier wrong. when we were putting together a program of long-term improvement, i got comments of well you re not going to be here you re only going to be there a couple of years. you re not going to be able to get this done. i said, i can t live with myself unless we do the right thing. that s why we put together the my v.a. initiative about improving customer service, being veteran-centric, taking care of employees. if we don t take care of employees, they re not going to take care of veterans. improving internal support services, the scheduling system in phoenix that was a problem dated to 1985. doing strategic partnerships because they re force multipliers for us. and last but not least creating a culture of continuous improvement. we re teaching employees about lean six sigma and having them take responsibility for
bill: as the white house faces questions over handling of the veterans administration crisis, we re learning obama team was warned about problems at the va right after the 2008 election. washington times reporting that officials had briefed the obama transition team about the need to reduce excessive wait times for our veterans as va tech officials were working on an overhaul of the scheduling system. last week the acting secretary of va testified the system was outdated but had no other update on plans to fix it. patti ann: speaking of ignored warnings, damaging new report shows the white house was warned about the growing immigration crisis along the u.s.-mexico border as early as last summer. the report raised serious flags about the flood of unaccompanied children across the border and warned the situation was expected to get a lot worse. this report coming out just days after senate majority leader harry reid described the border, as secure. well that comment raised eyebrows and