Is responding, ed . Good evening. Its interesting because they are admitting that the president knew maybe even before that president ial transition that there were major problems and saying back in 2007 during the campaign the president made some big promises and said it would be a sick raid trust. He said they knew they were big problems to grapple with and now we see the drip, drip of scandal that reach add stream of allegations in 19 states, count them, 19 states where we seen problems including information, a doctor in West Virginia that is aware of allegations including at least two patients committing suicide while waiting for care. They were desperately waiting for care and ended up committing suicide. Bottom line thanks report about the 2008 president ial transition shows this problem predated the Obama Administration, started in the Bush Administration but begs the question to jay carney about what this president has been doing for the last nearly six years to deal with it while yet another republican came out today and said secretary shinseki should resign and the president needs to speak out more, listen. If you are warned about it in the transition, wouldnt you do something in 2009, 2010, 2011 absolutely, we asked for and received significant increases in the Veterans Affair budget. But its not getting to the veterans. Thats simply not the case. You have more veterans being served through Health Centers around the country. I get general shinseki is mad at hell and the president may be madder than him but the president over took every step to avoid any leadership position. While the president has not spoken out on this matter in nearly a month, the republican noting white house aids saying the president madder than hell and will speak out on this soon. We dont know what day. There is pressure growing on him and when did the president first hear about these allegations about 40 people allegedly dying phoenix waiting for care. He said it was through media report, interesting, because we heard that with other stories like the irs before, sean. One quick question, the whistle blower will be on the show and victims families to tell stories. This is West Virginia, this is virginia, this is albuquerque, this is new mexico. In each case it seems to be the same tactic, if you will, the same fraudulent scheme. Did anybody bring that up with jay carney . Hes been pressed. There were bonises given if they were able to windle down the wait time and make sure the people were being seen. That might be one motive. We dont know. Still being investigated. The idea if people were not being seen by 14 days and taken six months, eight months, however long, in al b al bar kwau they get great care from the va hospitals but other whose are obviously waiting in line and cant get that care. Yeah, it seems that these wait lists have been institutionalized from say fill si to facility, state to state. Great reporting. Thank you. As he mentioned, the problems at the va medical facilities did not just limit to phoenix, arizona and have been reported all across the country including the locations you see right there on your screen. Issues such as management, data manipulation, lengthy wait times and poor care are just some of the more recent reports. Joining me with reaction are the senators from the great state of arizona, republicans, john mccain and jeff flake. Senator mccain, i want to go to the question it seems this is not isolated, this wait list issue that is in your state of arizona, this seems institutionalized. In other words, that makes me suspicious that somebody told these facilities to do this. Is that a reasonable thought . I think its reasonable but i also think its reasonable, sean, that they set parameters that there would be certain waiting times that shouldnt be exceeded. Because in the nature of their business, they were unable to meet those waiting times, so, then it seems natural that people would then Start Cooking the books, so to speak. By the way, albuquerque is the latest one. I campaigned in 2008 and said we have to fund mentally restructure the va. Thats what we need to do f. A veteran needs routine health care, he or she should have a card and take that card to whatever Health Care Facility that they think they where they can get the best treatment. Jeff and i live in a big state, arizona. Sometimes a veteran has to ride in a van for three hours or more to get to a routine medical treatment. Why not give that veteran a card and let him or her get it wherever they are . Thats what i campaigned on and its not going to be fixed until we give the flexibility to the veteran to get the care they think they need most. You know, senator flake, the fact that they adopted in different states the same fraud system is that suspicious to you . It is. They travel around and get advancement or promotion and move around different va facilities and its likely that in the same way that some businesses take best practices with them, they may have taken the worst practices with them with regard to these wait times because it seems to be the same kind of devices used to mask the real waiting time. Let me tell you as well, that, you know, if Congress Needs to appropriate money more, if we need to do that, we need to do that based on the information we get from the va and if the va is saying that we have an average of just 14 days of wait time, then were not getting good information to about on. So this is a big problem. All right. The news today that the president knew, i want to get both your reactions to this, senator mccain, we learned today in fact they were told in 2008 as you mentioned and also we know that the president gave a speech to disabled vets in august of 2013 and he said, you know, veterans who come under this system et cetera, ill be honest with you, its not moving as fast as i want it to move et cetera, et cetera. So hes known about it the entire time it seems but yet, its worse than ever. So i mean, is this the equivalent of health care death panels for our vets . I know 167 families were paid out since 2001. Did they make a decision to pay out the families, rather than to provide the care . What i think it really indicates, also, all that, sean, but where is the president s priorities in 2008, as you mentioned, in transition and you said wait times are too long on several other occasions. You said he was aware of things that were still wrong at the va. Hes in his second term now. Where was it on his priority list . It seems to me it couldnt have been real high because really nothing changed at the va. In fact, things got worse. As jeff said, we did appropriate more money, but youre only as good as information that you get, and i know of no member of congress that wouldnt appropriate all the money thats necessary. So one of your liberal friends on sunday i noticed said congress nickelled and dimed them. Thats an out right lie. They admitted more money had been spent. What about shinseki . Should he go . I do go ahead, jeff. No, general shinseki called myself and senator mccain saying that he is going to address these allegations its under his watch. How many years has he been there now . No, he certainly bears responsible for a lot of this. Why should he be given another opportunity . My concern and senator mccain can tell you if he has concerns. My concern is that if he were to go right now, the focus would be on the new guy and new person and they would be given time to get it right and we should shift responsibility or accountability. We need to get to the bottom of what is going on and so even though it happened under his watch, do you think the transition to a new person is more difficult than keeping the same and Competent Person in place . Keeping him there to be accountable until we found out what went on and then decide what to do upon that. But right now, lets hold somebody accountable. Lets have him testify before congress as he is as the secretary of Veterans Affairs, not as the former secretary. Senator mccain, your thought . Sean, veterans in the house which in has done an in depth study. They are going to have him as the secretary before him. I think we can wait until after that testimony. I have to say that testimony before the senate Veterans Affairs committee was not a very strong performance. Lets wait and see what happens at this next hearing. Thank you both for being with us. We have a lot more coming up tonight right here on hannity. Were going to challenge each of our 57 regional va offices to come up with the best ways of doing business, of harnessing the best information in technologies and and cutting red tape and breaking through the bureaucracy. Another scandal where the president says he did not know about he learned from the media and speaking in 2009 and coming up next, the family members of two va victims will react and the va scandal is not isolated to just phoenix va hospital and two patients committed suicide while waiting for treatment and dr. Ben minca here. Captain this is a tip. Bellman thanks, captain obvious. Captain and heres a tip. When you save money on hotel rooms, its just like saving money on anything else that costs money. Like shoes, textiles, foreign investments, spatulas, bounty hunters, javelins. Whon a certified preownedan unlimitedmercedesbenz . Nty what does it mean to drive as far as you want. For up to three years and be covered . It means your odometer. Is there to record the memories. During the mercedesbenz certified preowned sales event now through june 2nd, youll get complimentary prepaid maintenance and may qualify for a twomonth payment credit. Only at your authorized mercedesbenz dealer. What if it were more than something to share . What if a photo could build that shelf youve always wanted . Or fix a leaky faucet . Or even give you your saturday back . The new snapfix app revolutionizes local service. Just snap a photo and angies list coordinates a toprated provider to do the work on your schedule. The app makes it easy. The power of angies list makes it work. Download snapfix for free. Welcome back to hannity. The Obama Administration was notified about the issues plaguing Health Facilities in 2008, the president made this decoloration, about the mismanagement in 2009 during as speech in where else but phoenix where 40 people it is alleged have died waiting for care. Were going to challenge each of our 57 regional va offices to come up with the best ways of doing business, of harnessing the best information of technologies, of cutting red tape and breaking through the bureaucracy and then were going to fund the best ideas and put them into action. All with a Simple Mission and slash the wait times and deliver your benefits sooner and you heard for years the leadership and resources this time means that were going to be able to do it. That is our mission and well make it happen. That is our mission, well make it happen. The leadership and resources are provided 2009 in phoenix here with reaction from outside the hospital are two women whose families have fall victim to the phoenixs va neglect. Sally and guys, welcome to the program. I know ainsley was out there. Can i one quick question and the system and has anybody let me go through this. Sally sally you lost your father. Something is wrong with my pop. It is a delay in Getting Service in the er. How long of a delay. A long delay . And your other there in that time, a big jug of blood and it was red, red, red. In the emergency room. In the emergency room. They didnt take him in right away . No, oh, no, no, no, they said we have to wait. Wow. Do you think did he pass away, right . He died, yes, he did of bladder cancer. Do you believe he died because of the neglect at the hospital right behind you . If pop would have got served, as he should have got serveserv dont know. All i can say is this, by neglecting him, they could have prolonged his life. They could have gave him the highest quality of care that could have treated him not like an animal. They could have came out with a diagnosis and how do you know a miracle couldnt happen or how do you know they couldnt contain the area if they didnt check and care. What would you say to the president of the United States who gave that speech right there in phoenix if he called you tonight . If he called me tonight i would simply say youre a liar, i dont trust you and if it was up to me, i would fire him and i believe hes a part of it, as well. He gave us nothing. Nothing. Wow. All he wants to do is go on the mission and still continue to let the veterans die including my pop and i dont like you very much, mr. President. Joe, let me go to your story. We were following your story and updating your story. Tell us about the issue involving your husband. Well, dan fell on december 7th and broke his back and when we got him down to the va, we had to go down to get an appointment because nobody answers the phones. And then we had to wait weeks for an xray, more weeks for an mri, more weeks for more tests. We never did get to see a doctor until they finally referred us out to a neurosurgeon who said the procedure had to be done within six months. Wait a minute, how do you not get care when your back is broken . They knew the back was broken, right . They knew it after they did the xrays and mris and did nothing. They did nothing about it. So after our first segment with you aired, you got good news you thought. Almost at the six month mark. Tell us what happened. Update us. We got a phone call and they scheduled dan for an appointment to come in for the procedure. We got to the hospital. They put on a Blood Pressure cuff, iv inserted, doctor we had never seen before came in and started telling us he didnt think it would work because it had been six months, he didnt think dan would get much relief and at that point dan agreed with him so they prescribed pain medications and sent him home. The neurosurgeon was a surgeon in germany. He said if we were in germany, we wouldnt have this discussion because youre too old to treat. Guess what . Thats what happened here. Its socialized medicine and obamacare. Jim, your last words. I cant imagine this is such a high level of betrayal. I cant put words into my mouth its so shocking to me and now were discovering its so wide spread throughout the system and the country. What is your reaction to that . I would like to and mr. Mccain if he has a tenpoint plan for fixing the va like he did the country and boarder but more importantly, sean, i want you to know were Tea Party Members and very dear friends have arranged for dan to see a specialist at the arizona back and Pain Institute here in phoenix. Hes going this afternoon to see that specialist. Its paid for by our tea party friends. Wow, if there is anything else we can do to help, please let us know. Thank you joe and sally and im sorry, its up forgivable. Sean . Yeah. Sean, pop one went in the 28th of september, right . I think its a disgrace, inhuman they called you after he had died while he was waiting for the care, even though hes literally urinating buckets of blood. Right, but they gave him a rheumatology appointment october 8th, a rheumatologist, they were more concerned with his arthritis. I hope america is paying attention. My next guest is ex poiposi what happened during her tenure in West Virginia. She blames the va for two suicides and says the treatment is worse than if they werent treated at all. Dr. Margaret is with us. Tell us what you saw and what you believe. Well, sean, first i have to say those stories are stunning. Heart wrenching. Sad, and wide spread. Terrible to hear, terrible to hear. I think it would be very helpful for your viewer ship to try to hear these stories on two levels, that is, the veterans system is so large and you have a layer of workers, doctors and nurses and technicians caring for people and then you have the bureaucracy, you have administrative people and it is big, so the doctors are not only trying to work, but you have to manipulate through this maze, this big bureaucracy. Now so when we final fault, these cases will be examined, we hope, by Law Enforcement to find if there was malpractice, mistreatment or a crime i dont mean to interrupt you. Im tough on time but you had patients, you would see them and then not see them for months yeah, we didnt have a wait list in my clinic. They got it right. They got them in, which was good shs but then it was days and weeks and months for the second visit and in psychiatry, sometimes partial treatment is worse than no treatment. That were not waiting on a lift but waiting in a clinic for their second visit, which is worse, you see, than a waiting list because they were partially treated. Thats why my tenure was so short. You tried to speak out. We talked, we talked. They first listened and eventually the sympathy dries up ask then they dont hear me. I was basically shut up. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Thats where my story is. I really didnt have a high rate of suicide statistically but my story is relevant to these stories in that administration, i think, because of its size and cumbersomeness is not adaptable and nimble and cannot respond and you can have the finest care providers and there are good doctors and nurses in the va that get good treatment but its so hard to pull together and negotiate this maze. All right. And that is where the president when he said im going to cut bureaucracy, that would have helped but its bigger in fact. Doctor, thank you for what youve done and thank you for speaking out. Thanks for having me. A long way to helping these guys get the treatment we prom hissed they deserved. Im glad youre talking about it. We need somebody to talk about it. Well continue to follow it. We promise you that. He was not afraid to tell the president how he feels. Dr. Ben carson will explain how the medical system can be fixed, that and more plus this. Some people are going to america with kids that look just like them and too often, those schools arent equal, especially ones attended by students of color. Eric holder and the first lady of the United States talk about the issue of race during a very controversial commencement speech in that case. That and much more as hannity continues. Vo once upon a time there was a boy who traveled to a faraway place where villages floated on water and castles were houses dragons lurked giants stood tall and the good queen showed the boy it could all be real avo whatever you can imagine, all in one place expedia, find yours welcome back