'We Found It, Now Let's Fix It'

July 25, 2007 — -- A presidential commission is pushing for some broad changes in veterans' health care, just four months after roach-infested conditions were discovered at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

That incident prompted the creation of the president's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors, which presented its findings to the White House today.

The commission said big changes were needed: Streamline and simplify health care to cut red tape and delays, extend the family leave act to allow relatives to care for injured service members for up to six months without losing their jobs, and create a Web site that centralizes all the information about benefits for vets and their families, were some of the recommendations.

"We owe a wounded soldier the very best care, and the very best benefits, and the very easiest to understand system," President Bush said as the panel presented its report.

The system has been exposed as understaffed, underfunded and under pressure from an unexpected flow of severely injured troops.

"We knew that the system had some problems, and we also knew that Band-Aids were not going to cut it," said former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, who's on the president's panel..

Veterans groups said the findings should be a wake-up call.

"This report is really an indictment of the military health care system," said Paul Rieckoff of the Iraq and Afghan Veterans of America.

This is just the latest in a long list of similar reports that haven't fixed the problem — there have been 34 by the General Accounting Office and 11 previous commissions dating back half a century — all calling for changes in the military's health care system.

Veteran care is a system that failed Sgt. Michael Boothby, previously interviewed by ABC's Bob Woodruff.

Boothby suffered a traumatic brain injury from a roadside bomb in Iraq, but when he was transferred from a VA hospital in Tampa, Fla., to a facility near his Texas home, his condition deteriorated.