(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) expressed shock and horror after new details were made public in the wait time scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).  Internal documents from VA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigations were made public following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from USA TODAY.  The IG paints a portrait of a department in systemic cultural crisis nationwide.  

VA employees in 19 states and Puerto Rico routinely “zeroed out” wait times for veterans, which concealed the length of the delays.  Worse yet, VA supervisors themselves instructed schedulers to fabricate patient wait times at medical facilities in seven states: Arkansas, California, Delaware, Illinois, New York, Texas and Vermont.  In one case, a VA employee was scolded for not manipulating wait times. 

These latest findings put yet another nail in the coffin of those that have lauded the single-payer VA as “huge policy success story,” as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman boasted in a November 13, 2011 column.  Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called the VA a “godsend” on June 24, 2009.  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on October 24, 2015 that the scandal was “not as widespread” as some had claimed.  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who was asleep at the wheel when he chaired the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee as the scandal unfolded, “held one-sixth of the hearings on oversight that his House of Representatives counterpart held,” according to the Daily Beast on February 5, 2016.   

CAGW President Tom Schatz said:  “The corruption is indeed widespread.  Just when one thinks that the scandal cannot get worse, it does.  The rampant mismanagement and misconduct throughout the department shows a clear pattern of bureaucratic behavior that is seemingly impervious to corrective action.  This mountain of bureaucratic wrongdoing should be cause for a wholesale transition to a full voucher system, which would allow veterans to choose the best (and fastest) care for them.  That is the least we owe the brave men and women who have served our country.”

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. 

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