>> sloan gibson has been working greats longer than me and credit to allison hickey, undersecretary for veterans affairs. it is allison's vision and leadership has led to the creationists -- they creation of this impure eyes to platform which has been the key enabler in driving down the claims. i also want to call out veteran .ervice organizations they have been tremendous partners because we have all worked together to make sure the claims are submitted, our what we call fully developed claims. partners andse state governments have helped as well, make sure those claims are right before they get to us, then it makes it much easier to process them. great read it to our partners and as i said before, we are open for business and want to continue partnering with everybody. time,are almost out of but before asking the last question, we have a couple of housekeeping matters to take care of. first, i would like to announce the upcoming events we will be having. on november 17, allison mcfarland, chair of the nuclear regulatory commission, will speak about the safe operation of the nation's 1

recently e-mail surfaced showing the acting va secretary sloan gibson, or you pay tribute to do in your remarks, correspond with the acting inspecting general to encourage him to include that language downplaying those links in the report. was it appropriate for gibson to seek changes to an inspector general's report, it was appropriate for the ig to act on gibson's suggestions? >> we take every veteran outcome and credibly seriously, and the fact that veterans in phoenix weren't getting the appropriate care that they had earned, we all take very personally. very personally. because these other guys we all served with. and when i think back to the guys i served with, it becomes very, very personal. it becomes very personal. and to think that there's some shenanigans going on for political purposes by a man as honorable as sloan gibson who is also serve his country, went to west point, served his country, and has agreed to serve again, ladies and gentlemen. i mean, he was very successful in business and he has come back to serve again. i just, i can't comment on how that upsets me. the n

is his west point classmate, sloan gibson, who used to run the u.s.o.hey sat across the table from each other in the mess hall. >> sloan gibson: the first place i visited was phoenix, ground zero. while i was in phoenix, i met with a large group of employees they wanted to do the right thing. they worked really hard, but the system and the organization was just not supporting them. what i saw there-- leadership failure, mismanagement, and chronic under-investment in the system. >> pelley: already, gibson has suspended bonuses for all v.a. executives. and he fired the director of an alabama hospital. tomorrow, mcdonald will unveil the reorganization, part of it designed so that veterans won't have to go to war to get their benefits. >> mcdonald: right now, they face nine different organization structures across the country, so they don't know where to go. and if they do find somebody to go to, that person may be an expert in benefits but not an expert in heath care. and we want to create a customer service representative that that person can go to. secon

va secretary sloan gibson. the committee chair is congressman jeff miller. >> would you saul take your seats, please. the committee will come to order. welcome back, everybody. it's great to have you back. appreciate everybody joining us for this full hearing, an oversight hearing today. i want to ask unanimous consent that several of our colleagues be allowed to join us, representative murphy from pennsylvania and lamofo from california, they have asked to join us and i would ask unanimous consent. without objection, so ordered. as everyone sitting around this dias today is aware, on the 7th of august, the president signed into law the veteran access choice and accountability act of 2014, which is now public law 113-146. this law was carefully and thoughtfully crafted after months of aggressive oversight by this committee to address the president access and accountability scandal that had engulfed the department of veterans affairs following allegations that were first uncovered in this room that some va medic

secretary sloan gibson will face off with lawmakers on how it's taking so long to fix va hospitals. house committee examines the global response to ebola. >>> moments from now the defense chief, chuck hagel and chairman of joint chiefs of staff martin dempsey will testify. all of this happening as sources tell cnn president obama is re-examining america's war on isis and asking for a review of the military strategy in syria. elise labott and barbara starr join me. in orlando, lieutenant general mark curly. welcome to all of you. >> hi, carol. >> thanks for being here. let's begin with you, elise. the white house denies an official review of the strategy in syria has been ordered. what are they talking about? you broke this story. >> let's be clear, carol. it's not a military strategy. we're talking about a political transition dealing with president assad. the white house, as you said, not calling it a review, but officials are calling it constant recalibrations on the strategy. one official for me called it a, quote, vigorous assessment. i think there's a realization they need to b

sloan his assistant gibson are working really, really hard. v.a. is a huge system and you can't bring change overnight. i think what bob is talking about, what the secretary is talking about is you can fire anybody but you don't want to lose on appeals.

i want to thank my west point classmate and a dear friend, sloan gibson, an acting secretary for a number of months, for the work he did to lay down the pavement on the early part of the road. under his leadership we began to surge resources to places where resources were needed to get people off eight lists, driver down the disability claim backlog and reduce homelessness. i heard in facilities all over the country about how we had extended clinic hours in the evening, on the weekends. we have mobile units we brought to various locations like phoenix. we have hired more doctors. we have hired more nurses. in order to be able to extend those hours. we have asked people to work overtime, and these results have been effective in getting people off of wait lists and into clinics. >> this is the part of the program where i'm rude and say if you could do another minute or two, then we can do questions -- >> i will. >> if i don't get to questions they'll march on me with torches. it's ugly. >> va scheduled more than 1.2 million more appointment ned past four months over the same period a year a

joining us from the department of veterans affairs, the deputy secretary, the honorable sloan gibson, accompanied by mr. james tush schmid, the act illinois principal deputy under secretary of health, and gregly giddens. i appreciate you all being here. please proceed. >> chairman miller, ranking member michaud, distinguished members of the committee, our guiding principles for implementation of the choice act have been to do what is right for veterans, and to be good stewards of taxpayer resources. while our challenges are clear, we're turning those challenges into opportunities to improve the care and service we provide to veterans. we are re-organizing va for success to make sure we maximize those opportunities. we call that reorganization, my va, and an associated customer service solution that goes along with it. because we want veterans to view us as an organization that belongs to them. providing quality care in the ways they need and they ways they want to be served. my va entails combining functions, simply identifying operations, and -- simplifying operations, improving proc

the deputy secretary the honorable sloan gibson is accompanied today by the acting principal deputy and the executive director of the enterprise program management office. please proceed with your testimony. >> members of the committee were guiding principles for implementation of choice act had been to do what's right for veterans and to be good stewards of taxpayer resources. while our challenges are clear about we are turning those into opportunities to include the care and service that we provide to veterans. we are reorganizing for success to make sure that we maximize those opportunities. we call that the organization in the customer service solution that goes along with it. because we won the veterans took to view us as an organization that belongs to them providing quality care in the ways they need and the way they want to be served. simplifying the operations and improving the processes leveraging the technology and enhancing efficiency and increasing productivity a 360-degree efforts to provide veterans with a seamless integrated and response regardless of how they come to us

. >> well, as you know, my predecessor, sloan gibson, who was president and ceo of the uso is now deputy secretary of veterans affairs. so he's going to have an opportunity to work that problem along with his boss. you know, again, i would go back to a little bit what i said earlier which is, first of all, you know, you have to have a period of sort of a new leader does, a period of a voyage of discovery where you're figuring out what is really wrong and needs fixing as opposed to what the hype is in the newspapers and things like that. once you've done that, then focusing on the two or three things that are critical to the success of the organization. now, i don't know what those are for the v.a. i know, you know, i know that sloan is certainly focused on that, and i wish him the, you know, great success. but i think it's the same, the same thing. you can't do, you can't do everything. and so particularly in a time period that's limited by the politics of our, of our system. so for somebody like him and his boss to make those kinds of changes, they really have to figure out what's impor

>> my predecessor, sloan gibson, who was president and ceo of uso is deputy secretary of veteran affairs. he is going to have an opportunity to work that problem along with his boss. again, i would go back to what i said earlier, which is first of all, you have to have a period of a new leader, a voyage of discovery where you are figuring out what is really wrong and needs fixing. as opposed to what the hype is in the newspapers. once you have done that, focus on the two or three things that are critical. i do not know what they are for the v.a. i know that sloan is focused on that and i wish him the great success. it is the same thing you cannot do, you cannot do verything. in a time period limited by the politics of our system. for somebody like him to make those kind of changes, they have to figure out what is an important. >> there's been a long-running debate about having this freestanding v.a. versus the pentagon. people have said the pentagon has a lot of opinions about whether it should be more connected. have you ever had a policy point of view, whether we have the right set up

gibson,edecessor, sloan who was president and ceo of uso is deputy secretary of veteran affairs. he is going to have an opportunity to work that problem along with his boss. again, i would go back to what i said earlier, which is first of all, you have to have a period of a new leader, a voyage of discovery where you are figuring andwhat is really wrong needs fixing. hype ised to what the in the newspapers. once you have done that, oaks and on the two or three things that are critical. i do not know what they are for the v.a. i know that sloan is focused on that and i wish him the great success. it is the same thing you cannot do, you cannot do everything. period limited by the politics of our system. for somebody like him to make those kind of changes, they have to figure out what is an important. >> there's been a long-running debate about having this freestanding v.a. versus the pentagon. people have said the pentagon has a lot of opinions about whether it should be more connected. have you ever had a policy point of view, whether we have the right set up to succeed? >> no, i

sloan his assistant gibson are working really, really hard. v.a. is a huge system and you can't bring change overnight. i think what bob is talking about, what the secretary is talking about is you can fire anybody but you don't want to lose on appeals. you don't want somebody running to the courts and saying i was fired unjustly. what they are trying to do is. there -- dot their i's and cross their the second point that i would furor for the last year in the v.a. was the fact that in phoenix and other parts of the country, we had unacceptably long waiting periods. you know what? in the last number of months, leadershipder bob's has made significant progress in making sure that veterans are getting into the v.a. in a timely manner, or if not, getting out to the private sector in a timely manner. in phoenix inseen elsewhere, and i don't have the statistics in front of me, that what you have seen a

joining us from the department of veterans affairs, the deputy secretary, honorable sloan gibson. he is accompanied today by mr. james chuch smit there secretary of health and gregory gibbons from the management office. i appreciate you being here. and deputy secretary gibson, please proceed with your testimony. >> chairman miller, distinguished members of the committee, our goiding principles for implementation of the choice act have been to do what's right for veterans and to be good stewards of taxpayer resources. while our challenges are clear, we're turning those challenges into opportunities to improve the care and service we provide to veterans. we are reorganizing v.a. for success to make sure we maximize those opportunities. we call that reorganization my v.a., an associated customer service solution that goes along with it. because we want veterans to view us as an organization that belongs to them. providing quality care in the ways they need and the ways they want to be served. my v.a. entails functions, operations, improving processes, leveraging technology and enhanc