Fired VA secretary says privatization advocates doomed him

The former Secretary fears a politicized culture in Washington that could lead to the privatization of VA’s health system. We are trying to improve and transform the VA.

“I just don’t see privatization as a good thing for veterans”, Shulkin said in an interview with the PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff. “Processing times ranged from 124 to 2,312 days to complete and averaged 1,153 days”, the report said.

“I think that this was, really, all about the politics, and really not about the substance of the issue”.

“They saw me as an obstacle to privatization who had to be removed”, Shulkin wrote. President Trump ousted Secretary David Shulkin after a turbulent 14 months in the position.

Now, the Navy doctor who has been entrusted with the health of the past three presidents is poised for a promotion, tapped to replace David Shulkin at an agency that has been badly bruised by scandal. In the interim, Robert Wilkie, the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, will be the acting VA secretary.

Congressman Brian Mast (R-FL) has introduced legislation to encourage opening Congressional offices inside Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities across the nation.

“I felt like Shulkin had more experience”, Cervantes said. “It’s been very hard”.

“No one’s ever mentioned what the goal of this trip was”, he argued. The VA has been beset by problems in recent years, struggling to keep up with increasing demand for services from veterans and their dependents.

Will Fischer, the group’s director of government relations, said Adm. Jackson “has never managed an agency like the VA”. The single expenditure spent was on a coach airfare for my wife who was officially invited. The White House, which advised Shulkin on his decision to sole-source a contract to Cerner, did not respond to requests for comment.

Shulkin was the remaining holdover from the Obama administration. And it shows Jackson has succeeded at arguably the most important measure in the Trump administration: winning the president’s trust. Recently, Trump nominated Jackson to receive a second star, promoting him to the rank of full rear admiral.

Shulkin’s departure caps a dizzying month of changes to the Trump cabinet, most notably the sacking of Rex Tillerson as secretary of state on March 13.

Shulkin on Thursday wrote an op-ed for the New York Times where he called the environment in Washington “toxic”. If Jackson is confirmed, he will be will be its fourth leader in the past four years.

Dan Caldwell, executive director of the conservative Concerned Veterans for America, said the group is keeping an “open mind” about Jackson’s nomination. Aides said Trump has been eating more fish and fewer cheeseburgers lately.

Will Fischer at the left-leaning political action committee VoteVets wonders if Jackson’s glowing portrayal of the president’s health got him the job. There were political appointees in my administration that didn’t see it that way and really wanted us to take a much harder stance, I wasn’t willing to do that. “The administration needs to be ready to prove that he’s qualified to run such a massive agency, a $200 billion bureaucracy”.

Similar doubts were expressed by Veterans of Foreign Wars, which praised Jackson’s military background in a statement but pointed to a nominee biography devoid of “any experience working with the VA or with veterans, or managing any organization of size, much less one as multifaceted as the Department of Veterans Affairs”.