WASHINGTON - President Bush on Tuesday nominated retired Army Lt. Gen. James Peake to direct the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The president said Peake will work to end months-long delays facing hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops trying to get treatment and benefits.
The nomination comes as the administration and Congress struggle to resolve some of the worst problems afflicting wounded warriors, such as getting adequate mental-health care and disability checks on time.
Peake, 63, a medical doctor who has spent 40 years in military medicine, retired from the Army in 2004 after being at the helm in several medical posts, including four years as the U.S. Army surgeon general.
"He will be the first physician and the first general to serve as secretary," Bush said, standing next to Peake in the Roosevelt Room. "He will apply his decades of expertise in combat medicine and health care management to improve the veterans health system."
In February, reports surfaced of shoddy outpatient treatment, poor living conditions and bureaucratic delays at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
Soon afterward, Bush set up a presidential commission led by former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., and Donna Shalala, former Health and Human Services secretary during the Clinton administration.
The panel urged broad changes to veterans' care that would boost benefits to family members caring for the wounded, establish an easy-to-use Web site for medical records and overhaul the way disability pay is awarded. It also recommended stronger partnerships between the Pentagon and the private sector to improve treatment for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
If confirmed by the Senate, Peake's first task will be to continue carrying out the commission's recommendations either through executive or legislative action.
"The disability system is largely a 1945 product, 1945 processes around a 1945 family unit," Peake said. "About everybody that has studied it recently said it is time to do some revisions."
The VA's backlog is between 400,000 and 600,000 claims, with delays of about 180 days.
Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson, who announced his resignation in July, effective Oct. 1, pledged to cut that time to 145 days. But he has made little headway with thousands of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan returning home.
Senate Majority Leader HarryReid and other Democrats sent Bush a letter Monday, complaining about delays in naming Nicholson's successor.
They said the VA system was stretched beyond capacity even before the current military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, and cited questions recently raised about the manner in which the VA screens, hires and monitors physicians and other health care professionals who work at VA facilities.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said that during his confirmation hearing, Peake will have to prove he is up to the task of overhauling the government's second-largest agency with 235,000 employees. Senators likely will ask Peake what he knew about the problems of poor care at Walter Reed when he was Army surgeon general from 2000 to 2004.
"Given Dr. Peake's past posts running the Armyhealth care system, he will have serious and significant questions to answer about failed preparations for our returning wounded warriors," Murray said.
Anthony Principi, a former veterans affairs secretary, said Peake should not be expected to oversee changes of an outdated veterans benefits system all by himself. "Clearly, it does need to be reformed," Principi told White House reporters after Bush announced his pick. "It's going to take a lot of consensus building among the veterans groups and the Congress."
Meanwhile, a new study says about one of every eight veterans under the age of 65 is uninsured, a finding that contradicts the assumption many have that all vets qualify for free health care through the Veterans Affairs Department.
Researchers at Harvard Medical School projected that about 1.8 million veterans overall lack health coverage. That's an increase of 290,000 since 2000. The researchers said most uninsured veterans are in the middle class and are ineligible for VA care because of their incomes. Still others cannot afford their co-payments, or lack VA facilities in their communities.
The study is based on an analysis of government surveys released between 1988 and 2005. Veterans do fare better than the overall population when it comes to obtaining health insurance. Still, the Harvard researchers said the rising number of uninsured vets points to the need for more funding for the VA. The best solution, they said, would be for universal health coverage in the United States.
Information for this article was contributed by Hope Yen and Kevin Freking of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 10/31/2007