CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript

Interview

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PHILLIPS: Well, if we never reported another veteran's horror story, it would be fine with us, but as it is, we can barely keep up with them. The huge backlog of claims, faulty colonoscopy equipment, botched radiation treatments, a later that mistakenly told some vets that they had Lou Gehrig's Disease, suicide, PTSD -- the system is definitely sick. And thankfully, people like Senator Patty Murray of Washington are pushing forward a solution -- a number of solutions, actually, that she's made there to the VA and veterans. That is her mission, for sure.

Great to see you, Senator.

SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D), WASHINGTON: Well, nice to talk to you.

PHILLIPS: I'll tell you, you know, time and time again, we have tried to talk with the secretary about these various issues. We're definitely not going to stop reporting the stories. We can't seem to get through to him to talk to us, but you sure have.

Do you think that this is the right manned for the job, Eric Shinseki, and why do you believe yes or no?

MURRAY: Well, you know, I have lived through a lot being an advocate for veterans in the VA system, where, for a long time, we've had a VA that downplayed problems, didn't want to talk about them, hid the truth. And it was horrible for our veterans and what we were able to do with them.

I think the change that is good with General Shinsheki is he is a man who speaks truth to power and is willing to say, yes, we have a problem. But we still have a long way to go to meet many of these needs, as we have so many people coming home now from Iraq and Afghanistan and an aging population of Vietnam and all their veterans.

PHILLIPS: All right. I've laid out so many of the problems that already exist. They're all stories that we cover here on a regular basis. But now you're telling me one of the newest problems to be added to the mix, women.

MURRAY: Women. You know, 14 percent of the veterans today are women. Yet, when women come home, they don't see themselves as a veteran, so they don't often get diagnosed, particularly for the PTSD, or traumatic brain injuries, some of the signature issues of this war.

And importantly, they don't get the benefits that they have worked to earn to deserve. So, why is that? They go to a VA and it doesn't feel like a hospitable place for a woman to enter. That's why I think it's really important that the VA wake up to where we are in this time in the nation's history and say we've got to make sure that our VA facilities work for women.

PHILLIPS: All right. So, as we well know, it takes money to do these things. It also takes people within the Veterans Administration that know how to handle this money properly and where to put that money.

So, there was a bill that was signed off last night?

MURRAY: Yes. Well, one of our challenges has been is the VA doesn't know how much money they're going to get until late into the year because it takes Congress so long to get their so-called appropriations bills through.

We just had a major victory here, where, last night, the Senate passed the bill, also been passed by the House and now to the president's desk, that's called advanced appropriations. This is something our veterans have asked for, for a long time.

So, the VA knows well ahead of time what their resources are. And then we need an honest system where the secretary of the VA comes back and says this isn't enough, or this will get us there, or we need more and why, so that they aren't waiting for money to make sure they get the resources out to our vets.

PHILLIPS: Finally, we have been talking so much about PTSD and how it's been ignored, how men and women have gone to their superiors to talk about this, have ended up committing suicide, dealing with depression, getting out of the military. We have heard all the horror stories. Now, finally, some changes are being proposed, changes that are getting somewhere.

Can you tell me about that? We were reading about it today.

MURRAY: You know, one of the hardest things that has been for all of us to face is that too many people within the VA system and within the country don't recognize PTSD. And we had a VA itself for a very long time that downplayed the issue of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In a major change, this administration is now saying that they will recognize PTSD, not just when a soldier has been around a violent incident, but if there is a threat of a violent incident. So, if a soldier is driving to and from a very dangerous place, and there is a threat of IEDs going off, often, before they were not recognized as having PTSD. Now with this new rule change, it will recognize that as a trigger to PTSD.

So, we're starting to change attitudes about a very critical issue.

PHILLIPS: That's what we want to hear.

Senator Patty Murray, we'll continue to follow up or your efforts. Thanks so much for your time today.

MURRAY: Thank you.

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