Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
The incompetence of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) strikes again.
This time, bureaucrats mismanaged $543 million of funds so they could NOT be spent on veterans.
Genius.
A report from the Veteran Affairs’ Office of the Inspector General released Tuesday details how the VA over-obligated $543 million for non-VA care that due to federal spending laws were not allowed to be spent on veterans. The “Non-VA Care” (NVC) program is designed to help veterans who cannot easily access VA facilities. The Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 separated NVC funding from other VA medical appropriations effectively causing the over-obligated funds to not be used for any purpose.
The estimated NVC costs per veteran in 2013 was $4,515, meaning if the VA had reduced the over-obligation of funds from 29 percent to just 10 percent, it would have freed enough money, $358 million, to fund non-VA care for nearly 80,000 veterans who were experiencing delays in receiving care.
The punchline? The VA is asking Congress for $1.3 billion more because they don’t have enough funding.
Why do we keep rewarding the VA for bad behavior? These bureaucrats need to be fired and replaced with people who are actually committed to helping our veterans.