Republicans stepped up their attacks on US President Barack Obama’s administration over a deepening US Veterans Affairs healthcare delay scandal on Thursday, but US House Speaker John Boehner again declined to join a growing list of lawmakers calling for US Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign.
Boehner told reporters he was still not convinced that Shinseki’s ouster would solve the deparment’s problems.
Instead, he sought to keep the pressure on Obama for veterans affairs scheduling abuses that covered up monthslong delays for veterans’ medical care appointments.
On Wednesday, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ inspector general confirmed in an interim report that Phoenix Veterans Affairs officials manipulated data to vastly understate appointment waiting times for veterans, and said the problem was “systemic” throughout the department.
It added that the data was used to calculate bonus awards.
The report prompted dozens of lawmakers from both parties to turn against Shinseki and demand his resignation.
Several more prominent Democratic senators joined these calls on Thursday, including Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who face tight re-election races.
Shinseki was expected to address the department’s probes yesterday in a speech to a conference on homeless veterans, an agency official said.
Shinseki met with leaders of veterans groups to outline his action plan, but the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America said this did not restore their confidence in him.
The scandal exploded earlier this month after Veterans Affairs doctors in Phoenix went public with allegations that about 40 veterans had died while waiting months for primary-care appointments.
White House spokesman Jay Carney repeatedly declined to say whether Obama still has confidence in Shinseki, but added that the president wanted accountability based on the outcome of investigations and results of an internal audit due shortly.
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