The VA secretary is being accused of digging up dirt on a woman veteran who made a sexual-assault claim

41% of women veterans are now part of VA.

Wilkie said that when he took over as secretary of Veterans Affairs in the first half of 2018, he "was told that only 25% of women veterans were part of the VA family."

But statistics reported on the last day of 2019 showed "41% of all women veterans in this country are now part of the VA," growth he pointed to as a sign the VA is "leading the change in the military culture."

"When my father was first commissioned two months before President Kennedy was inaugurated, less than one-half of 1% of those in uniform were women," Wilkie said.

During the tenure of then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, "19% of the force was female," Wilkie said. "For veterans, that means right now 10% of all veterans in the United States are America's fighting women."

Asked again about the Goldstein case, Wilkie returned to the increasing use of the VA by women veterans, saying that 41%, or 780,000 women veterans, was approaching the 48% of male veterans who use VA.

"So we're getting close to parity now. That was unheard of two years ago," he said.

1.7 million more appointments.

Wilkie said the VA had rededicated itself to customer service, which was "our single mission, not dodging scandal after scandal, and the numbers show our success."

"Our wait times, according to organizations like the American Medical Association, are as good or better than any in the private sector. We are seeing more veterans than ever. We completed 1.7 million more appointments in [fiscal year 2019] than we did in FY18, or a record 59.9 million appointments. Ninety percent of our veterans surveyed trust the care that they get at VA."

2.8 million referrals.

Wilkie on Thursday touted the VA Mission Act, a bipartisan measure passed in 2018 to expand veterans' access to private doctors. (The bill allowing veterans to seek private care outside the VA was passed and signed by President Barack Obama in 2014.)

"In the first six months, we approved nearly 2.8 million referrals to the private sector on behalf of one and a half million veterans," Wilkie said.

"This year, we will implement a provision of the Mission Act that will extend caregiver benefits to veterans from my father's era, Vietnam, and others who served before 1975," Wilkie added.

Lawmakers have expressed concern about the Mission Act.

"Eight months into the new community care program, the VA has not provided — or cannot provide — the number of referrals that have become appointments," Sen. Jon Tester said at a hearing this month, referring to a program launched in June 2019.

Without that information, Tester said, it would be hard to find the program's cost and usage, though VA officials at the hearing said costs should be in line with estimates.

Senators also referenced a VA inspector general report that predicted longer wait times under the Mission Act, which has happened in some parts of the country.

8,000 employees let go.

Trump signed legislation in 2017 making it easier to fire workers at the VA, which has more than 350,000 employees and is the government's second-largest department.

"We brought back accountability," Wilkie said . "More than 8,000 employees have been let go ... for not meeting the performance standards that our veterans expect. There is no record like that in the federal government."

But a report released in October by the VA inspector general found "significant deficiencies" in the accountability office that was set up by the law, including poor leadership, poor training for investigators, and a failure to push out senior leaders who underperformed.

40,000 homeless veterans.

Asked about reaching veterans that the VA has been unable to reach, Wilkie said the current model is working.

"There were hundreds of thousands of homeless veterans just a few years ago," he said. "Today, we're right below 40,000."

In December 2019, the Department of Housing and Urban Development said it had counted 37,085 homeless veterans in a January 2019 tally.

That 2019 total was down 2.1% from 2018, which followed a drop of 5% a year earlier and was a decline of almost 50% from 2009.

HUD Secretary Ben Carson has credited much of the progress to an approach that began under Obama, centering on the HUD-VA Supporting Housing Program, which gives homeless veterans permanent housing and provides a case manager and clinical care services.

1,700 calls a day.

Wilkie said his department is increasing its responsiveness to veterans thinking of taking their own lives.

"Our veteran's crisis line takes 1,700 calls a day, and we physically act on 100 of those calls to get immediate help to veterans and their families," Wilkie said.

Cities have had success eliminating veteran homelessness by working with charities to find and help them, Wilkie said, and he believed such outreach would work to address veteran suicide.

"We cannot address this issue alone. Sixty percent of those 20 veterans a day who take their lives have no contact with us. That is why the "Prevents" task force is so important, and I will recommend to the president that we open up the aperture on the support of charities, local governments, nongovernmental organizations, [and] give them the financial resources that they need to help us find those veterans that we do not see."

Wilkie said he had asked the Alaska Federation of Natives for help with outreach there, where "50% of the veterans ... have no contact with us. They have no contact with any government."

51% decrease in opioid prescriptions.

Asked about opioids, Wilkie said overprescribing painkillers was a trend in American medicine, but "VA recognized that crisis, I think, long before the rest of America did."

"We have reduced opioid prescription at VA by 51% in the last few years. We have led the nation in terms of substituting opioids with common household painkillers like aspirin and ibuprofen, aspirin and acetaminophen," Wilkie added.

There was also a cultural element to reducing the VA's use of opioids, he said.

Cultural shifts have also made non-traditional treatments, which would have been seen as "contrary to the ethos of a warrior" by previous generations, more viable now, Wilkie said.

"By us educating and walking veterans through means to address pain and not the brain, I have seen Vietnam veterans, 78-year-olds doing ... music therapy, art therapy," he added. "It a whole-health approach that I believe VA has set the standard for the rest of the country."

"We continue to make sure that only pain medicine that is prescribed is absolutely necessary, and it is the last act that we perform after already exhausting many avenues for pain management."

5G hospitals.

Wilkie also touted the VA's technological advances.

"VA will now have the first 5G hospital in America," he said on February 5. "As I speak, our hospital in Palo Alto is about to become the first 5G-enabled health facility in the world. It should be operational this week."

5G will provide "richer, more detailed, three-dimensional images of patients' anatomy" with resolution "so clear and consistent that will give us reliable means of delivering telesurgery services to veterans across the nation."

"We will have the capacity to allow the VA's best physicians to consult during surgery even if they are not in the same room and are halfway across the country. It will also be a breakthrough for surgeons in the operating room. Imagine a doctor being able to see layers beneath the skin before the first incision is ever made."

1st VA secretary before Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

Asked what the VA was doing to help deported veterans, Wilkie said that "goes beyond my purview."

But, he added, the VA has been doing more to reach underserved communities.

"I have spent a great deal of time focusing on Native American and Pacific Island veterans. I'm the first VA secretary to ever testify in front of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee," he said.

"I have visited all of our territories in the Pacific as well as those Freely Associated Compact State countries like Micronesia, Palau, the Marshall Islands, who send their citizens to the armed forces of the United States, trying to get services out to those who serve us."

Native Americans have "highest per capita rate of service of any group, highest award of the two highest medals for valor, the Medal of Honor and then the Distinguished Service Cross," Wilkie added.

"I've been meeting with tribal nation leaders from Alaska all the way down to Oklahoma, and we'll continue that process."