Many veterans are still waiting to see a doctor.
Two years ago, vets were waiting a long time for care at Veterans Affairs clinics across the country. At one facility in Phoenix, for example, veterans waited an average of 115 days for an appointment. Adding insult to injury, some VA schedulers were told tofalsify data to make it look like the waits weren't that bad.
The whole scandal ended up forcing the resignation of Eric Shinseki, secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs at the time.
Congress and the VA came up with a fix: Veterans Choice, a $10 billion program that was supposed to give veterans a card that would let them see a non-VA doctor if they were more than 40 miles away from a VA facility or they were going to have to wait longer than 30 days for a VA provider to see them.
There was a problem, though. Congress gave the VA only 90 days to set up the system. Facing that extremely tight time frame, the VA turned to two private companies to administer the program and help veterans get an appointment with a doctor and then work with the VA to pay that doctor.
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3 comments:
There's no way so many smart people can screw up so badly. This is bad by design.
We should just pay for veteran healthcare with private providers. Offer them say 10% - 15% above medicare/medicaid, to make sure they are welcome anywhere. The veterans are smart enough to figure out the best providers for their needs.
Think about all the bureaucracy we won't have to pay for. I bet this would be a lot cheaper.
10 billion went for raises and bonuses to the incompetent.
And another _____ billion went for illegal alien health care.
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