Rep. Calvert Statement on Growing VA Scandal

Today, Congressman Ken Calvert (CA-42) issued the following statement in response to the release of the Veterans Affairs (VA) Inspector General Interim Report on the Veterans Health Administration (VHA).

"The VA Inspector General Report shines the light on a disturbing pattern of shameful behavior by those entrusted to care for our Veterans. While most federal employees at the VA provide our Veterans with quality service, it makes me sick to think that some employees put concerns about their own salaries and bonuses above the need to provide our Veterans with the health care and service they were seeking. Federal employees who lie and rig the system in order to enhance their compensation are stealing money from American taxpayers. While many of my colleagues have called on Secretary Shinseki to step down, I believe we need to root out any and all VA personnel that led to, participated in or will obstruct the correction of these heinous actions. Our veterans have fought and worked too damn hard to be subjected to these kinds of bureaucratic games."

The VA Inspector General Interim Report can be found here.

The findings of the Interim Report included:

• "Identified an additional 1,700 veterans who were waiting for a primary care appointment but were not on the electronic waiting list (EWL)"

• "The length of time these 1,700 veterans wait for appointments prior to being scheduled or added to the EWL will never be captured in any VA wait time data because Phoenix Health Care System (HCS) staff had not yet scheduled their appointment or added them to the EWL."

• "The Phoenix HCS leadership understated the time new patients waited for their primary care appointment listed in their FY 2013 performance appraisal accomplishments, which is one of the factors considered for awards and salary increases."

• "At this time, it appears that a significant number of schedulers are manipulating the waiting times of established patients by using the wrong desired date of care. Instead of schedulers using a date based on when the provider wants to see the veteran or when the veteran wants an appointment, the scheduler deviates from VHA's scheduling policy by going into the system to determine when the next available appointment is and using that as a purported desired date. This results in a false 0-day wait time."

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