as of september 5th there is only 10 veterans, though waitlist.d not refer patients to a non v.a. care. bay made almost 50,000 referrals for non the >> >> going forward more than personnel actions to create a culture were all employees understand how they're daily work supports our mission and values and strategies and requires supervisors to provide daily feedback to every subordinate for what is going well to identify what improvements are necessary moving forward on several fronts to discuss the initiatives with the chairman and ranking members and many members here. last week we announced the beginning of the road to veterans day focusing on the next 60 days to rebuild the trust with veterans and the american people to improve service delivery to set the course for long-term excellence. we released of blueprint for excellence and general clancy on my left and a former undersecretary for health now the chief medical officer at one of the largest medical providers in the country has four broad themes and attend a central strategy is to simultane

has decreased the waitlist 2,000, tohan 30 t around 24,000 as of august 15. we have reduced the new and rowley appointment request list for nearly 64,002 right now approximately 1700. >> this is a combination of expanding v.a. capacity and sending people out to the private sector? >> yes. it includes things like in phoenix we moved in three mobile units from around the region. we increased clinical hours. we work on overtime. it is a matter of putting the resources where they need to be put. we collaborated with the department of defense in some sites, collaborating with indian health services. these were the things that were done. we have had more people that we have put into the private sector. more patients have gone into the private sector. in each one of those referrals is resulting in on average of seven appointments. that number understates the care that has been provided. so we are making progress there, but more work needs to be done, and the building you mentioned will help us do that, by providing great access points, 27 more new points, and the ab

explain the impact of the waitlist on quality care. it's a totally made-up standard based on the circumstances of the complaint of this case. if i could have picked something different to look at, we would have come up with a different test. thank you, mr. chairman. i healed back. -- i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. do you know if there is a parallel fbi investigation going on at this moment? >> there is a joint investigation involving my people and the fbi. >> investigating the same issues? asking the same questions? >> they are doing it together. if there is an interview happening, there is an oig criminal investigation and fbi presence. the question related to the closing out of 12 cases and still 93 ongoing, you mentioned they were closed out because they met the wereria and the questions answered. you talked about additional information that was not necessarily related that you called together. can you talk about the additional information? can you give me some examples? >> let me clarify that point for you. when we did s

waitlist scandal happened many layers below the secretary level. how can you be sure that the leadership teams that are near you are going to be able to tell you the truth or be able to get , and that you can count on people getting you accurate information? >> it's going to require a change in culture. have experience running large organizations know that is probably the most difficult thing to do. with the purpose, values, and principles, which are the bedrock of any organization. the first thing i did is i ask for every employee to recommit themselves to the mission of caring for veterans and to the values of the organization represented in the eye care -- i care acronym. we have used that as a leadership exercise to talk with their employees about the mission, the values. we have tried to demonstrate that we want a very open culture. we talked about the positive aspects of whistleblowing. the talk about the positive aspects of criticism. i have used a couple of diagrams. people think of an organization like this, and the customer is on the bott

the mesa school system has a 2000 kid waitlist. the great heart school system has a 12,000 kid waitlist. i believe mom and dad know better where their child should go to school than someone writing zip code lines. i would like to sit down with education champions and say, how can we move these kids into the school they prefer more quickly? i think it is a huge opportunity. >> does that mean funding construction through taxpayer funding? >> it is not just public charter schools. it is also public traditional k-12 that are excelling. we have open enrollment in the state, parents who want to move kids from one district to another. i want to reward those districts. i think there is ways we can do that by giving flexibility to those dollars, so moms and dad can decide where they can be spent, and educate their child indicate to 12 system. i would offer an example of the educational savings accounts. those of done a good job to demonstrate flexibility for a small number of our children. and if there is a school with a waitlist, i think t

teddy barnes says his father thomas, a navy veteran died while on a secret waitlist but nobody from theunds like they're trying to cover it up or sugar coat it because we didn't hear anything about it. >> and now newly released figures show that 293 veterans died, not 40, 293 while on the sa secret waitlist. that doesn't mean they died from lack of care. but some are already asking if the phoenix investigation should be reopened. gayle? >> wow. >> a lot of questions. >> that's a much bigger number. >> yeah. >> a much bigger number. >> we'll be paying more attention. thank you, wyatt. >>> cnet's scott stein brings the new >>> screening for depression could soon be as easy as a blood test. psychiatrist jeffrey lieberman is in our toyota green room. he's coming up next. he'll show us how this could help 16 milli americans. that's ahead on "cbs this morning." he trains. he's psyched. ready for the knockout? you don't know "aarp." he's staying in shape by keeping his brain healthy and focused with aarp's staying sharp. with online mind sharpening exercises developed by the top minds in brain

by all sources throughout the investigation oig in fact accounted for 44 deaths on the electronic waitlist alone and in an astonishing 293 total veteran deaths on all of the lists provided from multiple sources throughout this review. to be clear, it is not nor was it not my intention to offend the inspector general and the hard-working people within the agency however i think i would be remiss in my duty to conduct oversight of the department of veterans affairs if i did not ask these questions. i would also like to point out that no one within the department or any other federal government employee including members of this committee is beyond having their records scrutinized. as such the committee will continue to ask the questions that need to be asked in order to reform our constitutional duties. it's absolutely imported that the oig's integrity and investigation be preserved. full and transparent hearings like this will help ensure that remains the case. with that i now turn to the ranking member mr. mitchell for his opening statement. >> thank you mr. chairman for having this import

are very, very blessed to have that, and i was telling tom, when all is said and done between our waitlist and students that had been put up in year,s or tripled, this we have two empty beds on our campus, said that is either really good planning or dumb luck, so we are very, very happy. know, the college and our new hampshire institute of politics and political andary is a premier forum, frequently the first step for those interested in our storied tested time and political process. with the 2016 election on the horizon, the college will once again take a leading role in hosting a town hall conversations and gatherings like this one, where new hampshire citizens, the media, and our students can reap the benefits of being first in the nation. council the new england for your continued partnership with the institute of politics. the new england council remains the leading voice for the region's business community on capitol hill, and they have the tireless work of fostering collaboration, in this ensures a england,ture for new looking to hire graduates from campuses like ours in their offic

does us chairman received the same thing we did thatac there were 22 who died on the electronic waitlistwho died on the consulate list. and to find out what happened which was the exhaustive pursued still on going because of the urology issues we discovered, the obvious first question in our interview is give us the don't miss any of these 40 because it was so definitive. here very careful to say potentially 40 in the hearing. as time passed it became declare it is by some others said at least 40. so that spawned eight -- 800 reports of 40 veterans died waiting for care in phoenix. that was the story. but to not address that with the amount of coverage and the millions of readers who would have read that wouldm >> >> >> we ask for the draft that you gave so the v.a. can make the determination of it was factual or not. you knew that is what it was. wait a minute. my time. you knew what the request was what we were trying to get. from the draft to the final. now we have testimony from dr. daigh they did not conclusively will get all causes of death. so i still make a statement that i will

intorovides investigation waitlist allegations.undingt boosts the into ebola, as requested by the white house. border security needs by providing funding and flexibility within customs and border protection and immigration and customs enforcement. five, a continues a surge in funding for state department programs to counter regional aggression towards ukraine and other former soviet union countries. the bill also extends the authority of the internet tax freedom act through the duration of the cr, and the export import bank through june 30 of 2015. they are funded to the discretionary funding of the legislation. not temporary measure does reflect the overall changing budgetary needs of the nation, the same way regular appropriations legislation does. and that is why i am irritated that the senate will not help us do our job. clearly, it would be my preference to have enacted actual line-by-line appropriation bills. we have made great strides in the house towards completing that vital work, in fact, we passed 11 of the 12 bills thro

if we can't attribute any deaths to the weightless problems, we should say so and -- waitlist problemshould say so and say why. the draft wording in the draft report was, were the deaths of many of these veterans related to delays and care? this type of deliberation to ensure clarity continued, as it should, after the initial draft was sent to the department. in the last six years with issued more than 1700 reports. this same review and comment process has been used effectively throughout oig's history to provide the va secretary and members of congress with independent, unbiased, fact-based program reviews to correct identified deficiencies and improved va programs. these reports have served as the basis for 67 congressional oversight hearings, including 48 hearings before this committee. during these same six years, and our work has been recognized by the ig community with 25 own words for excellence. we are scruples about her independence and take pride in the performance of our mission to ensure veterans receive the care, support and recognition they have earned through service to

can you also conclusively assert that we do lists did not contribute -- waitlisted that continue to the death of veteran? >> no. >> and did you say that in the report? is that reflected? >> no. >> why not? >> what i hope -- >> this is an important -- >> this is why not. we put in here the stories of all these people who we thought did not get proper care, and it was my assumption that by reading these stories you could understand where the weights were and you could of to arrive at your own conclusion. >> you made a very powerful statement based on analytical model that is not reflected on the other side of the question. the reason it matters is because for six months we have been investigating the death of veterans. and i.t. words matter. franklin more than any political appointee. we challenge political appointee worked all the time and a lot of times they are wrong and misleading. respect the ig not to be. so the statement you made it you cannot conclusively assert that led to deaths is a substantive statement that addresses work done in six months. ..

the phoenix va. 3500 were not on any official list in 1400 brontË nonreporting secret electronic waitlist 293 of these veterans are now pcs. this vastly exceeds my original allegations that up to 40 veterans may have died while waiting for care. the ig says it is not charged with determining criminal conduct. true, but neither is the charge of reports designed to downplay potential criminal conduct designed to defuse and discourage criminal investigations or diminish the property of public outreach. as this report is a whitewash and at its worst a feeble attempt at a cover-up. the report to liberal uses confusing language invents new and realistic standards of proof ignores why electronic waiting list was not reporting accurate data and makes misleading statements. in addition to in addition to tim's minimize bad outcomes by downplaying the information and protecting the va officials responsible for the scandal just reinforces the long-standing culture of circling the wagons to let the claim story or patient died of the veterans community has had to suffer with four years. ..

need to ensure that we are properly using the scheduling packages, the near list in the electronic waitlist and so far, for 7000 veterans, they have been contacted you wanted to get care at the v.a. in phoenix and we have been able to get them scheduled in. we also have been working very hard on the recommendations from the office of inspector general and of the 13 recommendations that were specific to phoenix, 10 have been corrected and we are submitting documentation to the ig to support removing those conditions from their report. i also want to make sure everybody knows about appendix k and that document is a response in writing to many of the concerns that were raised in the report and there is a lot of good information there about what phoenix has done in response to those findings. also this week, we were in washington providing the chairman's house veterans affairs committee information about the ig report and there was almost six hours of testimony which was really unprecedented. a lot of good information was committeeh the h-vac so we wanted to make sure people took a look at that

if we can't attribute any deaths to the weightless problems, we should say so and -- waitlist problem. we should say so and say why. the draft wording in the draft report was, were the deaths of many of these veterans related to delays and care? this type of deliberation to ensure clarity continued, as it should, after the initial draft was sent to the department. in the last six years with issued more than 1700 reports. this same review and comment process has been used effectively throughout oig's history to provide the va secretary and members of congress with independent, unbiased, fact-based program reviews to correct identified deficiencies and improved va programs. these reports have served as the basis for 67 congressional oversight hearings, including 48 hearings before this committee. during these same six years, and our work has been recognized by the ig community with 25 own words for excellence. we are scruples about her independence and take pride in the performance of our mission to ensure veterans receive the care, support and recognition they have earned through servi