Disputed area, it is one of our topics this morning as we continue on the washington journal. Dan dollinger will be june Daniel Dellinger will be toning us from indiana discuss Eric Shinseki, later, the ambassador to ukraine will give us the latest on the elections in that country and what it means moving ahead for the u. S. Insia, and europe. You are watching and listening to the washington journal. Back in a moment. [video clip] i focus on trying to stop waste, catching people who did it in the past. Go out, figure it out, handed up, say it is 50 , 30 , 60 , we are spending a lot of money and my staff time staff time could be better spent trying to find and identify problems and correct them. I ask you has the American People got their moneys worth . Their full moneys worth . No, definitely not. Beensome good things have done. A lot of good things. We have a lot of hardworking at the department of agriculture, interior, people from the department of commerce, a lot of people have devoted their lives and energies over there. But have we gotten the biggest bang for the buck . No. That is what we find all the time. Poor planning, poor execution. Sopko, as taxpayer general, and how american dollars are spent. Tonight at 8 00 on q a. Movementeople in the decided to take the cause to the supreme court, which is what i decided to write about. I am really gratified that the New York Times called me a stunningly intimate story. I was fascinated. I wanted to know what it would feel like to be a plaintiff in a major civil rights litigation case. What did that feel like . What was the judge thinking as he was considering the evidence . It turns out that in one of the many crazy twists, the judge was thought to be gay. What does it feel like . Alternately, i wanted to convey what it feels like to want something that everybody else has and be told you cant have it. From the first attempts to eight to stop prop eight and the defense of becker, act, jo tonight at 9 00. Our Book Club Selection is it. Lls you back join other readers in the discussion at the tv. Org. Host joining us from ,ndianapolis, Daniel Dellinger retired army officer and National Commander for the american for the American Legion. Thank you very much for being here. Guest thank you for having me. Host last week president told us what would happen in the a facilities. Arember of investigations going on. Another one is by rob neighbors. Congress is also looking into that. On this first report, what do you expect him to tell the president . A good question. The assessments around the country are an extension of what has been going on in this country for many years now. There have been 50 reports already from the ig. That is one of our contentions, the fact that the secretary has with thoseything reports to confess correct the deficiencies that are resulting in the deaths of veterans. Why is that . He is obviously a retired army officer general himself. He understands what happens to those military veterans and their families. From your standpoint, why do you think that the organization why is this happening . We dont know. That is what we have based our. Indings on what we say really needs to happen, he needs to go at this point. Forave the utmost respect him, but it is failed leadership and failed oversight of the system. He was brought in six years ago to clean up the v. A. , get rid of the inefficiencies and move forward. They have moved forward in some aspects, but when veterans are dying, that is beyond comprehension. This is what president obama said early in his administration, august of 2009, he spoke about this issue to the vfw convention. [video clip] toirresponsibly we choose reward the responsibility and service of our families. Whether you left in 2009 or 1949 , we will fulfill our responsibility to fulfill the benefit and care that you earned. I pledged to build nothing less than a 21st century v. A. A lifelong soldier and Wounded Warrior will lead this fight, general richard shinseki. [applause] are genetically increasing funding for Veterans Health care, including hundreds of millions of dollars to serve veterans a rural areas, as well as the unique needs of our growing number of women veterans. We are restoring access to the a health care for the half of a million veterans who lost eligibility in recent years. Much there has been so misinformation out there about Health Insurance reform, let me say this, the one thing that reform wont change is Veterans Health care. No one will take away your benefits, that is the plain and simple truth. That was the president from five years ago. In may of 2014, what has changed . Or what has not changed . Guest nothing, really. This is a failure to reform and move forward as stated. He said it to us in our convention also, that he would do this along with the secretary, but we just have not seen it happen. Host why . Guest a good point. Every year the money continues to rise. 60 in the last six years. But it is how we spend that money. They spend it in bonuses for failure when you have a director in pittsburgh that allows six veterans to die and others being taken by legionella , for him to get a 63,000 dollar bonus, that is one example. How do you repair the system . What needs to be fixed . Should be priority that all veterans get the best health care in a timely manner, as needed. Screenings, the tests that veterans need to save their lives due to illnesses are just not happening right now and they need to get back in line. [indiscernible] host what have the experiences of federal fellow veterans been like . Guest it is like skin cancer. It you have small pockets of it and take care of it, it will be all right, but if you dont take care of it you will die from skin cancer. There are 151 hospitals, 140 of them are doing a great job, but there is a pocket of about 10 or 11. Some of them are getting great care. Others have suffered from this diagnoses, like phoenix, being one example. There are between 9 million and 10 million veterans in the v. A. System, there has been a huge surge of people coming back in need of medical care and Mental Health care. Does the v. A. Provide the assistance that you think he needs to for those who suffer from ptsd . Not guest no, they havent. I have been to 25 hospitals this year myself. I have only found two that have a fully stocked Mental Health section. They need to hire additional Mental Health specialists, goingr it is feebased, outside private entities, or hiring additional people on staff, they need to do a better job because we have 22 veterans for day committing suicide, which is not acceptable. Ust guest host walk through the process that has been put in place to call for the v. A. Secretary to step down. On april 18 i met with the secretary for over an hour in his office. We discussed many issues. The backlog of disability claims. The health care being given. The disk construction delays for hospitals. I asked about firing those. At that point the v. A. Had admitted to 23 preventable deaths and nothing had been done. Fire thosee need to people. He said i dont need to fire anyone, i need to retrain them. That put up a red flag for me. As we got to the spring meetings, that they word came out that there were probably up to 40 preventable deaths also in phoenix. With everything we had seen going on, with what we had documented over a number of years on our website, you could see the pattern of continued failures. That was just the last straw, phoenix. Andwe drafted a resolution the vote was unanimous, to call for the resignation of secretary shinseki and the undersecretary. Ist Daniel Dellinger joining a sermon the annapolis, the head of the National American legion, thank you for joining us this morning. Guest thank you, sir. Host we have aligned set aside for those of you who are veterans. Walter, fitchburg, massachusetts, good morning. Good morning. Commander, i am glad to speak with you. Ironically, i still see my physicians in new york, even though i am in massachusetts. I am aware of something that you just to talk about v. A. Personnel being fired and so forth, the conceit of the accountability bill, as it came before the senate, it has occurred to me that a large portion of these individuals that work within the health care are part of university hospitals. They are socalled partners. The question i have seen some andnge things, up to including, of course, the hospital in new orleans having not been opened since katrina, running. S up and what we essentially have is a hole in the ground for the veterans in new orleans. By the way, calling for massachusetts, i am thoroughly involved in these situations, and yet very few people know this. In new york the healthcare care system, the manhattan v. A. Hospital is run by new york university. Thank you for the call. Lets get response. Happened to be in new orleans back in the fall. Of course you have lsu there with tulane. Most of the hospitals in this country partner with local universities to assist in care and to provide a teaching experience for the universities. Those are good partnerships, they get highquality care at those facilities. But new orleans was behind schedule and over budget. Vegas denver, las we are 1. 5 million over budget, and averaging 64 months pints casual. Host lets get your reaction to a story that broke over the weekend, the secretary saying the department will work towards right hospitals. Turning towards those private hospitals to care for wounded veterans. Your reaction . Caller its a good thing, if they cant get veterans in for screenings and tests, they should be able to go to the outside. It is not our intention to do away with the va hospital system, because it is necessary. Veterans have unique needs. But if they could be assisted by local hospitals, we are in favor of that, to make sure they get the kind of care they need. Host Dan Dellinger, i want to go back to what the president said in 2009, he campaigned in 2008 that he would focus on Veterans Issues. It has certainly been one of the priorities for the first lady, the president made reference to that on wednesday when he spoke to reporters. Fivet to ask why you think and a half years after he took office, this problem has escalated to where it is today . Guest i think part of it is veterans are losing their health benefits. They are looking to be a now for care, you have more veterans that have agent orange that have come out. Now,get their care there and also ptsd never does go away. I think some of these mental issues also is part of that. Of course you have the influx of a rack and afghanistan veterans, the newming back figure i heard is 30 have three ptsd. All of these things they need help. As with the bas that up to do. Is set up to do. Host with a lack of leadership, or at combination of rising demand, higher need, and budget cuts . Guest you cant say budget cuts, because as i said earlier, va is continued to be funded, they turn down money saying they didnt need that much. Was, are theyere using the right numbers . Are they cooking the books . If the number of visits are down, they think they have enough money based on the number of visits. Going on alls around the country, how many of these numbers are skewed . That is where the budget comes into it. The secretary needs to come out and have that leadership that he showed in the military. Put it to use in the va. Of ourhis tweet from one viewers, there is no proof that 40 veterans died as a direct result of delayed care. Do you want to respond to that point . Guest right now, i would say i dont know how many. I said up to 40. During with a persons our recent town hall meeting in itenix who came forward was supposed to be in our commented that being three hours and 45 minutes. We listen to 62 different individuals talk about their health care, eight of them did talk about deaths that their loved ones sustained it due to either lack of timing, or misdiagnosis at the va in phoenix alone. Host if you are listening on cspan radio, were talking about the American Legion, the va hospital system. Our guest is Dan Dellinger, he is the National Commander for the American Legion, joining us from indianapolis, ed is on the phone from an kennedy. Caller i was wondering about the funding issue, whether congress is going to look into this, and whether theyre going to examine the budget problems. I just read a study from john f. Kennedy school of government, and they said they va never anticipated the large number of iraq and afghanistan veterans needing health care. It was never funded, it was never planned for, and part of this goes back to the bush of ministrations administrations horrible planning. They want a light footprint in iraq that they could get away with, and a light footprint turned into an eight year slaughter slog. Ingot bogged down afghanistan, which was not planned for an eight year, nineyear war. I blame partially congress for not looking into these things, not investigating they are going to investigate benghazi for the next five months. But they are not going to investigate the funding for the va. I think switching singh jackie shinseki, and putting a different person and their wont cut it. You need to put more reform to it, do some planning an investigation. Host thanks very much for the call. ,uest with that, it is true and the senate as their hearing on the 15th, chairman sanders and members of the Senate Committee stated that once these came out, and if there is a need for additional money, that congress will go back and spend and add money to the ba to deliver the care that is expected. You go back to the secretary about his resigning when the president s advance team came to the white house and met with the bush administration, they were told at that time that there were possible problems with the way it was spent. This was the very first term. Since that time, the general has been hired, he is supposed to work with the administration to take care of these issues. But it has been a failure all along. It hasnt been completely addressed. Host if you are interested, the department of veteran affairs does have a map taking a look at the veteran population on a statebystate basis. It is Available Online at va. Go v, this is what looks like as we go to james from taxes. James from texas. Thing i wouldrst like to tell you is there is one mistake that everyone is making. The mentioned originally of the Veterans Department was to help those coming out of world war ii with medical problems. That mission has changed. The new mission of the Veterans AdministrationMedical Center is doctors. The needs of the doctors and the interns they come before the veterans. That is every Veterans Hospital i have been in. They schedule you according to what that in turn needs for his residency. That is a fact. Host james, thanks for the call. Dan dellinger, your response. Guest i really havent heard that, but we have what is called a system where saving goes in the hospitals and talks to the physicians and nurses, to see the quality of care they are given. We write a report at the end of each year. We submit that the congress, i would need to go back and review that to see if i have actually seen that. You have arue that lot of young doctors come in to satisfy the requirements, and they unfortunately do go on instead of staying, because they are not paid what they could receive in the outside arena. Week the house this past took up a measure that passed overwhelmingly to allow the vga bea the va to have more control. This cumbersome and opposed hr 4031. What is your reaction . Guest im disappointed that the senate dropped it. I dont know how they can look a veteran in the eye and say they would vote for this. You have to hold those administrators and those doctors accountable for preventable deaths. Host how big of a problem from your standpoint is this the president . Guest it should be huge. Get with the program, and fix these decisions, and make the bea what it is supposed to what iske the va supposed to be. If youhad it host had a chance to tell the what you wanted, what would you say . Guest i need to tell them again that he needs to do a better job with the va hospitals, promotable deaths are not acceptable. I have talked to a couple of veterans, and they say getting some feedback, if you could go to another room, or else we will have to move on. Caller i have talked to quite a few veterans that cant get in to the va system, i dont know what the situation is. Something about their serving in the military, i just cant get in there. I dont understand why. Not only that, i have seen quite i have seen several thats the passed away, and they couldnt get a flag on their coffin, because they couldnt come up with a dd 214. I wish that can be changed, in some way, somehow. Host ok, we will get a response. Dan dellinger. Guest around the country we have Service Officers, and these Service Officers are trained and certified to help veterans with their claims. That is in anybody need of assistance, and we dont recommend any veteran try to navigate this bureaucracy, and get into the system. You can go to our website, go to go to services, and if you need a Service Officer, you can find one of those. It is inize charge, it doesnt cost a cent. The American Legion pays for everything that happens there. You can utilize that to get into the system if you are eligible to get into the system. Flags, we fight that all the time. But again, if the Service Member has on record, or he is a part of the va system, he has a dd 214. We can also assist with obtaining those through st. Louis. If anybody needs that, there are links that you can find out how to apply for your copy of your dd 214. To the local American Legion post and have it on file there, so when the time comes no Fam