It is impossible to ‘reform’ the VA; it must be dismantled. We can establish something that is smaller as we create a system that allows our vets to access healthcare in the private sector. The only good thing about the VA in its current form is it teaches us what a monstrosity nationalize healthcare, euphemtistically called ‘Single Payer,’ would really be.

Via Washington Examiner.

Internal Department of Veterans Affairs data provided by whistleblowers reveals the agency is only filling about half of its capacity to make medical appointments, even as veterans continue to wait an average of at least 30 days before a medical appointment can be scheduled.

The VA documents show that between July and September of 2017, the agency only used 51.44 percent of the appointments available across its healthcare system.

VA documents also show there are currently 184,520 veterans across the nation waiting longer than 30 days for an appointment and more than 45,000 new veteran patients waiting more than 90 days. Internal VA documents also indicate 479,239 veterans nationwide are waiting for physician requested follow-up appointments over 30 days for the period July to September 2017.

The VA says its times have improved over the last few years.

“The wait time for all VA clinics from the date the veterans first requests an appointment to the date when the appointment is completed has decreased from 19 days to 17 days since 2014,” according to VA spokesperson Curt Cashour.

But in clinics around the country, the VA’s ability to use all of its available appointment time is still lagging.

In Iowa, the VA’s clinic utilization averaged just over 41 percent while between ten to twelve thousand appointments remained unfilled each of those months. Even while thousands of appointments remained unused, there were 1,291 veterans waiting more than 30 days for an appointment and at least 82 waiting longer than 90 days…

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