me get the rest of the way in, he took off his belt and wrapped it around her to apply pressure. so glad you made it through and the young woman you helped save. others didn t. they re in our prayers. we appreciate your first-person condition of this. thank you for joining us. thank you. on this memorial day as we remember the men and women who died serving our nation, officials are doling with the growing investigation involving more than two dozen va fa sills and now the obama administration is reporting it will let more vets get private cared. the department of veterans affairs wrote each of our facilities is enhancing clinic capacity, and where we cannot increase capacity, increasing the care through nonva care. those republicans and democrats have called on the va to let private hospitals get more involved. all comes after reports, as you probably know by now, of coverups at some facilities,
that is a say krid obligation and we re behind right now. the va is having problems and we got to get to the bottom of this. we got to the bottom of it. over the holiday weekend, the obama administration announced it would allow more veterans who can t be seen by the va to seek care in private hospitals. secretary shinseki issued the following statement, each of our fimts is either enhancing their clinic capacity to help veterans get care sooner or where we cannot increase capacity, increasing the care we acquire in the community through nonva care. but those involved in veterans affairs oversight say that the va already had that ability, given to them by congress under the millennium health care act in 2000. in testimony before congress on april 9th, va assistant deputy under secretary for health confirmed as much. the va have every legal authority to pay for a care that
v.a. handing it over to private hospitals. the administration is listening to democratic critics. you need to get rid of the backlog and open up the flood gate to hand over the care to private hospitals. this just came out yesterday. and the v.a. issued a statement to say the vha developed a coordinated system-wide initiative to accelerate care to veterans. each of our facilities is either enhancing their clinic capacity to help veterans get care sooner. it seems like this could have been happening all along. for years they could have been doing this. it seems for years there s been problem in the v.a. system. and the doctor backlog. they have received $150 billion in funding yet they have not hired more doctors to handle the 50% increase in the number of cases they had to take on after the wars in afghanistan and iraq. and we spoke to congressman john culverson on the show earlier this morning, he s one of the authors of a number of the bills
the democrats are saying the wait is too long and you have to do something. yesterday they released a statement from the veterans affairs committee saying vha developed a coordinated system-wide initiative to accelerate care to veterans. each of our facilities is either enhancing their clinic capacity to help veterans get care sooner or where we cannot increase capacity, increasing the care to we acquire in the community through non-v.a. care. and these bills have been collecting dust on senator harry reid s desk. they are waiting until after recess to take this up for a vote. that bill would allow them to fire employees who are doing a poor job. that bill had the resolution in
affairs said in a statement, each of our facilities is either enhancing their clinic capacity to help veterans get care sooner or where we cannot increase capacity, increasing the care we acquire in the community through nonv.a. care. but the top republican on the house veterans affairs committee says it is taking the obama administration too long to respond to these problems. responding to the v.a. announcement today, congressman jeff miller said although this action come too late and v.a. had the authority to offer private sector health care to veterans suffering all along, this is a change from the previous approach which was to wait months for the results of yet another investigation into a problem we already know exists. in his weekly radio address president obama said taking care of veterans and their families is a, quote, sacred obligation. we ve seen how much more we have to do to make sure all the