WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior official at the Department of Veterans Affairs says the agency is improperly spending at least $5 billion a year for medical care and supplies that are being purchased outside of required practices for competitive bidding and written contracts.
Jan Frye, deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and logistics, says “gross mismanagement” by senior agency leaders has wasted billions of dollars and made a “mockery” of federal laws regarding purchasing of goods and services.
Frye tells a House subcommittee Thursday billions of dollars in illegal purchases have been made for pharmaceutical drugs and medical supplies, putting veterans at risk and exposing the agency to widespread “fraud, waste and abuse.”
Republican Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado, chairman of a House Veterans Affairs oversight panel, is calling the allegations “truly staggering.”
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Well…lets watch the GOP’ers clutch some pearls over this.
Every year…or twice a year we find more VA shit. More fucking over the veterans or the American people. And it’s always the same. 99 % of the yak is political…just like “support the troops” is. America if you don’t want to fix 'em…don’t break 'em.
I’d wait for more details before being “shocked and appalled” by this. This official is saying that, at least in some cases, proper acquisition procedures aren’t being followed. Jumping from that observation to a conclusion that $5 billion is being wasted every year is quite a leap. Following procedures may reduce the chances of making expensive mistakes, but it hardly guarantees the most efficient outcome. And failing to follow the regs doesn’t automatically produce waste, nor does it necessarily endanger anyone.
During my 25 years as a snivel servant, I ran into a few celebrated whistleblowers. Perhaps 3% of the time, these folks were onto something, something that needed to be corrected. But the remaining 97% of the time, they were either misunderstanding what was going on, wildly overestimating the cost of the procedural errors they were seeing, hallucinating, or simply engaging in some irresponsible, self-aggrandizing grandstanding.
Be careful how much of that you believe. It turns out that, in spite of the reported problems, and despite being faced with a rapidly-growing pool of patients, with the kinds of difficult problems rarely seen in the non-military world, the VA usually provides better health care at a lower cost than the private sector, and with patient satisfaction that’s at least comparable.
Somewhat dated, but still… http://www.rand.org/blog/2012/08/socialized-or-not-we-can-learn-from-the-va.html
This is part of the drumbeat in which Koch & Ilk attempt to privitize the VA,
They don’t want to end this wasteful gubmint program, they want to get their hands on those tax dollars.
These shocking reports will appear every three days. TPM would do well to identify them each time for what they are.