When it comes to "draining the swamp" and cutting through Washington bureaucracy, no one group has more at stake than this nation's 22.5 million veterans.

Veterans Affairs is the largest provider of medical care in the nation and in the past five years we've learned how many of their facilities are failing to provide the care needed.Scandals have rocked the agency since 2014, when it was reported that VA hospitals were keeping secret waiting lists designed to hide the lengthy amounts of time veterans had to wait for care.A VA Inspector General report issued in 2015 found that there were 800,000 stalled records for veterans who were enrolling in health care. Of that number, 307,000 belonged to veterans who died.A separate horror story reported last summer involved a vermin infestation in the kitchen of a suburban Chicago Veterans Affairs hospital. Whistleblowers reported that cockroaches were routinely crawling across countertops as meals were being prepared and that the insects found their way into patients' food.Last fall, we learned that a crisis hotline for troubled veterans received more than 500,000 calls in 2016, 50 times the number it received in 2007, the hotline's first year of operation. Due to the poor work habits and other problems at the Department of Veterans Affairs, it was reported that more than one-third of calls to the suicide hotline were not being answered.David Shulkin, the VA's undersecretary for health, found that intolerable. He noted that an estimated 20 veterans commit suicide every day and that the vast majority were not connected to VA care in the last year of their lives.Shulkin made suicide prevention a top priority at VA, terming it a public health crisis. Due to his initiatives, the crisis line dispatched emergency responders an average of 30 times a day and made 80,000 referrals to suicide prevention coordinators. While this was a safety net for many veterans, Shulkin said he would not rest as long as there are veterans who remain at risk.While campaigning, President-elect Trump pledged to overhaul the VA, the second-largest federal agency, offering a 10-point plan designed to make it easier to fire VA employees who have "jeopardized the health, safety or well-being of a veteran" and allow veterans to seek care from providers outside of the VA system.Last week, he took a big step in fulfilling that promise by nominating Sulkin to be his secretary of Veterans Affairs.Shulkin, who has a home in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, has been endorsed by a number of veterans groups, including the Concerned Veterans for America, a veterans advocacy group, and Vietnam Veterans of America.In a letter to the president-elect's transition team, Vietnam Veterans of America noted that Shulkin was well-qualified. Since coming out of the private sector less than two years ago, the letter noted that Shulkin has been relentless in his pursuit of improving medical care for veterans, working to increase timely access, all the while holding managers and other VA staff accountable.That last requisite - accountability - is expected to be a high priority with Trump in the White House.Shulkin said his decision to accept the nomination to join the new administration came down to a sense of duty since it was clear that the VA was in need of reform.First, Shulkin said he felt his private sector experience was an asset, and second, it offered a chance to give back to those who had stepped up to serve our country.One thing Shulkin is not motivated by is the money. His last private sector job at Morristown Medical Center paid $1.3 million a year. His pay to manage the VHA will be $170,000.If confirmed by the Senate, Shulkin will be the first VA secretary who is not a veteran, but this should not be a major concern. He does have a military pedigree since his father was an Army psychiatrist and his grandfather was a veteran of World War I who later served as chief pharmacist at the VA facility in Madison, Wisconsin.While campaigning, president-elect Trump regularly criticized the VA for being corrupt and incompetent, and overhauling the department is no small order. For one, the department's vast computerized records system is considered obsolete.Sulkin is focused on meeting the challenge to fix the VA system, vowing he won't stop "until we get this right."Hopefully, he can deliver on those words to help all the veterans who have had their paperwork backlogged, been pushed to the back of the line or been placed on hold by an automated "hotline" voice message.By Jim Zbick |

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