AUGUSTA, Maine — It wasn’t long after Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki’s resignation Friday that U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud’s political opponents took the opportunity to tie the ongoing scandal at the veterans agency to their Democratic opponent.
“For years, Michaud has told the people of Maine he has inside knowledge on what happens at the VA, but he took little to no action about this scandal until an election year,” wrote Gov. Paul LePage, Michaud’s Republican opponent in this year’s gubernatorial election.
Eliot Cutler, an independent candidate in the governor’s race, similarly laid the VA scandal at Michaud’s feet.
“Maine people have to ask, ‘Where was Mike?’” Cutler said in an interview. “They have to ask whether he has demonstrated in this role, the House of Representatives, the kind of effective leadership they want from a governor.”
Michaud is the ranking Democrat of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, which has jurisdiction over the VA. He has served on the committee since he was elected to Congress in 2002. On Thursday night, he called for Shinseki’s resignation, saying the VA chief had become a political distraction, preventing members of Congress from addressing the problems in the agency. Shinseki resigned Friday.
It was confirmed Wednesday by the department’s internal watchdog that a VA hospital in Phoenix was keeping a secret waitlist for patients stuck in long backlogs for appointments, in order to cover up how long it was really taking to provide medical services to veterans. By falsifying the reports, VA staff hid the fact that 1,700 veterans waited an average of 115 days for appointments.
The whistleblower who revealed the scheme, a former Phoenix VA doctor, said as many as 40 veterans died while waiting for service. Investigators are also looking into 42 other VA hospitals — none of the facilities in Maine have been implicated.
While the cover-up in Phoenix was not discovered until recently, the VA’s inspector general has been raising concerns about scheduling issues for years. In 2005, it reported hospital staff were not following correct procedure for the agency’s complicated scheduling system.
That resulted in incorrect reports of waitlist length, according to a 2005 report.
“Scheduling procedures need to be improved to ensure accurate reporting of veterans’ waiting times and facility waiting lists,” the report stated. “Inaccurate waiting time data and waiting lists compromise Veterans Health Administration’s ability to assess and manage demand for medical care.”
Veterans Health Administration staff never got better at following the correct procedure. Last year, the Government Accountability Office also found that waitlist reports were “unreliable.”
Michaud defended himself in a written statement Friday evening.
“It’s outrageous to me that Gov. LePage is choosing this very serious moment to play such blatant politics. Our veterans deserve better,” he said. “I have worked hard for veterans since Day One, and I am proud of my record.”
Dan Rafter, Michaud’s spokesman, said LePage and Cutler are purposefully blurring the line between the scandal in Phoenix and other issues the congressman and his committee have been working to address for years.
Long backlogs at the VA — caused in part by underfunding and rising demand from the rapid influx of new veterans of the War on Terror — are well-known. Rafter said the committee has acted: He pointed to a committee bill to clear the backlog in VA hospitals by 2015, which passed in the House last year.
“They’ve been working to address the backlog for years now, and the VA is making some progress,” he said. “This inexcusable problem of data manipulation is not the same issue.”
Rafter also said it was hearings by Michaud’s committee led to Congress confirming that a cover-up had taken place in Phoenix.
At a committee hearing Wednesday night, hours after an investigator general report confirmed the cover-up, Michaud criticized the staff from the VA for not cooperating with the committee as it dug into issues involving the waitlists.
“We’re trying to work with you, but there has been a disconnect between what this committee needs to do our job, for oversight, and what the VA is willing to give us,” Michaud said.
Peter Miesburger is the legislative committee chairman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Maine. He works regularly with each member of Maine’s congressional delegation on veterans’ issues, he said, and disagrees with anyone assailing Michaud’s record.
“They’re going back so far, trying to dig up dirt,” he said. “[Michaud] is the greatest thing the veterans have had in the state of Maine for a long, long time.”
Miesburger, a retired Air Force master sergeant, pointed to Michaud’s successful effort to allow the VA to contract with other hospitals in northern Maine, so residents there wouldn’t need to drive all the way to Togus in Augusta to receive service.
He said he was dismayed by politicians so quickly turning the waitlist scandal into a political issue.
“Everybody’s out to get somebody’s head,” he said.
Miesburger’s not the only one taking issue with the scandal being politicized. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Florida, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, made similar remarks to CNN Wednesday.
“This is a bipartisan issue. We are talking about Americans, people who have worn the uniform,” he said. “It should not be a political football. And we on the House side have not done that.”
Follow Mario Moretto on Twitter at @riocarmine.
