Press Releases

After President Obama’s speech to the American Legion National convention, Chairman Jeff Miller released the following statement.

“President Obama’s actions today fall far short of what’s needed to regain the trust of America’s veterans. VA’s problems festered because administration officials ignored or denied the department’s challenges at every turn. In fact, I wrote to the president more than a year ago about a string of serious VA health care problems, lapses in employee integrity and failures in accountability, but the president didn’t bother to respond. Instead, I received a boilerplate letter from then-Sec. Eric Shinseki that assured me everything was OK at the department – an assertion that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Additionally, White House claims that VA is improving when it comes to accountability, transparency and protecting whistleblowers don’t add up, especially when no one has been fired as a result of the VA scandal, the department is still sitting on 113 outstanding information requests from the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and VA whistleblowers who tried to expose problems are still enduring retaliation. What we need from the president right now is more follow-through and less flash when it comes to helping veterans. A good place for him to start would be to meet with family members and veterans who have been struck by the VA scandal, order the department to cooperate with the congressional committees investigating VA, and force DoD and VA to work together to establish a joint electronic health record integrated across all DoD and VA components.” – Rep. Jeff Miller, Chairman, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs

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Chairman Miller letter to President Obama

May, 21, 2013