Interview with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont; V.A. Secretary Under Fire Over Backlogs, Long Waits
COSTELLO: The senator calling on Veterans Affairs Chief Eric Shinseki to testify about allegations of a massive cover-up by V.A. hospitals is warning people not to rush to judgment. Senator Bernie Sanders says allegations that V.A. hospitals tried to hide long wait times for sick veterans are being politicized. But the allegations are serious. In fact, CNN has been digging into these charges since last November. And this is what we turned up: at least 40 veterans died while waiting for care in Phoenix according to multiple sources. Some were placed on a secret waiting list. Some of those veterans waited up to 21 months for care. CNN investigations found delays in care in at least six hospitals including Wyoming and Texas. Not only that, the V.A. has admitted 23 people died because of delays in care. Senator Bernie Sanders is chairman of the Senate committee that will look into these allegations. He joins us now. Welcome, Senator.</s>SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Good to be with you, Carol.</s>COSTELLO: Nice to have you here. Senator, these allegations are disturbing. Three whistle blowers came forward to detail these charges. What's political about that?</s>SANDERS: Well, Carol, let me just say this, just comment on something you said a moment ago. If you look at "The Arizona Republic" a few days ago, May 9th, is what they said about the allegations, and "The Arizona Republic" has been covering this issue pretty extensively. I quote, "Dr. Foot," and Foot is the main source of the allegations. "Foot's allegation that 40 people died sometimes has been miscast by media that those deaths were attributable to delayed care. Foot said information he provided to Congress and the inspector general did not indicate how individuals died or whether they might have survived with more timely care." So, what we have done, Carol, which is I think the appropriate thing, but the V.A. said, look, charges, allegations have been made by Dr. Foot. Let's go out and do an independent investigation with the inspector general which is an independent entity and get to the truth of the matter. But what I just read you suggests, and you just mentioned a moment ago that 40 people died because of delayed care, that is not, as I understand it --</s>COSTELLO: Senator, I can only -- I can only rely on Drew Griffin and CNN Investigations. They've been investigating this matter since November. They put a lot of time in it. And you can't escape the fact that the V.A. itself admitted 23 people died directly because of delays in care. They admitted it.</s>SANDERS: Carol, the V.A. like any large institutions, has its problems. And that's why I said we are going to do a hearing, immediately after the investigation is completed. Second point, I want to make is do you know how many people are going in -- veterans are going to the V.A. today, and in my view as a nation we have a moral obligation to make sure every veteran in this country gets the best quality care that we can provide.</s>COSTELLO: I absolutely agree with that part of what you're saying.</s>SANDERS: Do you know how many veterans are going into V.A.'s 151 medical centers and 900 primary care facilities today? Over 200,000. So, the point is, you have a huge system. What the veterans tell us in general is they like V.A. health care. Patient satisfaction is generally higher --</s>COSTELLO: But, Senator, that doesn't excuse the fact that people died because some waited up to 21 months for care. Awful.</s>SANDERS: Carol, you're absolutely right. Nothing would excuse that. But I think you would agree with me that we need is an independent investigation by people who are trained to do that first. If one person died, that is one person too many. That's why we're going to get to the root of the issue. But the broad point that I want to make is when you're treating 6.5 million people a year, that's a lot of people. And there are going to be problems. If we simply say here is a problem, here is a problem -- what I'm suggesting to you is that independent studies suggest V.A. health care is pretty good, as good or better --</s>COSTELLO: Well, let me run this by you, Senator. Senator John McCain is a Vietnam POW. He says if these allegations are true, it's a crime. Listen to what he said.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: If these allegations are true, they're a violation of law. It's not a matter of resignations. It's a matter of whether somebody goes to jail or not, OK?</s>COSTELLO: There you have it. He says it's a crime. How is it possible that Shinseki was not aware of what was going on? Surely he knew.</s>SANDERS: Let's do -- first of all, if there are people who are cooking the books, Senator McCain is absolutely right, it is a crime. That's something we will deal with. But, Carol, all I'm suggesting is that I do not want to see 300,000 V.A. employees, many of whom are veterans themselves or related to veterans, vast majority of whom are doing a good job according to the veteran's community and according to independent surveys providing quality health care to our veterans, I don't want to see everybody disparaged.</s>COSTELLO: I hear you. But after your initial comments on this on Wolf Blitzer's show and hundreds of veterans contacted Drew Griffin to complain, they are worried you will not conduct a thorough investigation. Can you assure them you will?</s>SANDERS: Absolutely. First of all, it's not me who's going to be conducting the investigation. It is the inspector general. They're doing it right now.</s>COSTELO: But you're holding a hearing, right?</s>SANDERS: I am holding a hearing on the general state of V.A. health care. The hearing on the charges in Phoenix cannot be held until we have a report from the inspector general. I think what we want to hear this Thursday is from Shinseki, is from people who are critical of the V.A. and an overall view of what V.A. is doing well in terms of health care and what they are not doing well. Once we have the report from the inspector general, we are going to go from there. So, my point is where the V.A. has been deficient if there are serious problems like keeping two sets of books, that is very serious. We are going to get to the root of that. Look, I just offered comprehensive legislation to make sure we improve health care and other benefits for all of our veterans. We're going to fight hard for the veterans. I'm sure you will agree with me that we need a though row independent investigation to tell us what's going on in phoenix and elsewhere.</s>COSTELLO: All right. Senator Bernie Sanders, thank you for joining me this morning. I want to bring in CNN's Drew Griffin now because he worked so hard on this. Senator Sanders didn't want to debate this issue with you on the air. He wants to talk about it in his office at some point. I wanted to bring you on to tell people what your investigation uncovered, because these are serious allegations.</s>DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: They are very serious allegations. And from Senator Sanders, to be charitable, he seems woefully uninformed on this issue. My question to him is where has he and the committee been? The House Veterans Affairs Committee, bipartisan committee, has been looking into these problems in a year. In November, we reported veterans died at mostly southeast veterans hospitals. Carol, these men died, mostly men died because they couldn't get a colonoscopy in time. That's the care we're talking about for our veterans. Now, as you rightly said, in February, the V.A. admitted that 23 veterans died because of delays in care. The V.A. admits that. And 70 or more have had adverse outcomes. Now, we're talking about a cover-up in the last month. Phoenix, San Antonio and the most recent one is Cheyenne, Wyoming, where we have actual whistle blowers, people who make the schedules who are telling us and showing us how they are told to hide the delays in care. Take a look at this e-mail we got a hold of on Friday. This is from a clerk inside the Cheyenne, Wyoming, V.A. talking about how to game the system. You don't have to know the rules of the game you're playing. When we exceed 14-day measure, the front office gets very upset. What this person is talking about is actually scheduling appointments months and months and months in advance but recording them so they only look like they're 14 days out. The whistle-blower came forward and said she provided that to us and to others. Her name is Lisa Lee. Listen what she has to say, what's going on inside these hospitals.</s>LISA LEE, MEDICAL SUSPOORT ASSISTANT SCHEDULER: We were being told to game the system because it made Cheyenne look good. We were sat down by our supervisor in the conference room. He opened up his laptop and he showed us exactly how to schedule so it looked like it was within that 14-day period. So, It was all verbal when I was down there. And they would keep track of the schedulers who were complying and getting 100 percent of the 14-day, and those of us that were not doing it.</s>GRIFFIN: The person who wrote that e-mail, General Eric Shinseki, on Friday, put that person on administrative leave, opened yet another inspector general report at the hospital in Cheyenne, Wyoming. But this, we believe now, is systemic throughout the system, has been going on. And when we hear from Senator Sanders, his immediate reaction is to defend all this activity or not proceed, the veterans we're hearing from, they lose faith in this system of oversight, at least of the Senate.</s>COSTELLO: Drew Griffin, thanks so much. Still to come in the</s>NEWSROOM: This morning, the first image of the school girls kidnapped by Islamist terrorists. Nima Elbagir is in Nigeria and visited the town where that mass abduction happened.</s>NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's been checkpoint after checkpoint, and we have definitely, as we've been traveling north from the Nigerian capital of Abuja seen evidence of the security forces that the government is sending to combat the Boko Haram threat.