(CNN) - Republicans in their weekly address Saturday slammed the Department of Veterans Affairs for keeping soldiers waiting for their disability checks.
In calling for support of the VA Management Accountability Act, Rep. Jackie Walorski associated crippling bureaucracy in the agency to preventable deaths of patients waiting for their paper work to go through.
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The legislation would give the Veterans Affairs secretary the authority to remove senior officials when problems, such as backlogs and reports of delays in care occur on their watch.
"Without this real-world accountability, the VA has become the epitome of bureaucracy run amok," said the Republican from Indiana who is a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee and co-sponsor of the accountability legislation.
"These men and women fought for our country – they shouldn’t have to fight for their own benefits. We’ve traced much of this problem back to a sheer lack of accountability."
CNN's Dana Davidsen contributed to this report.