ok how many years do you want me to go back ? a decade ? two ?
2001 -the GAO finds that veterans still often wait more than two months for appointments.
2003 -- A commission appointed by President George W. Bush reports 236,000 veterans had been waiting six months or more for initial or follow-up visits.
2005 -- An anonymous tip leads to revelations of "significant problems with the quality of care" for surgical patients at the VA's Salisbury, North Carolina, hospital, according to congressional testimony. One veteran who sought treatment for a toenail injury died of heart failure after doctors failed to take account of his enlarged heart, according to testimony.
2006 -- Sensitive records containing the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of 26.5 million veterans are stolen from the home of a VA employee who did not have authority to take the materials.
2007 -- senior VA officials received bonuses of up to $33,000 despite a backlog of hundreds of thousands of benefits cases and an internal review that found numerous problems, some of them critical, at VA facilities across the nation.
2009 -- The VA discloses that than 10,000 veterans who underwent colonoscopies in Tennessee, Georgia and Florida were exposed to potential viral infections due to poorly disinfected equipment. Thirty-seven tested positive for two forms of hepatitis and six tested positive for HIV.
2011 -- Nine Ohio veterans test positive for hepatitis after routine dental work at a VA clinic in Dayton, Ohio. A dentist at the VA medical center there acknowledged not washing his hands or even changing gloves between patients for 18 years.
2011 -- An outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease begins at the VA hospital in Oakland, Pennsylvania .At least five veterans die of the disease over the next two years. In 2013, the newspaper discloses VA records showed evidence of widespread contamination of the facility dating back to 2007.
2012 -- The VA finds that the graves of at least 120 veterans in agency-run cemeteries are misidentified. The audit comes in the wake of a scandal at the Army's Arlington National Cemetery involving unmarked graves and incorrectly placed burials.
2013 -- The former director of Veteran Affairs facilities in Ohio, William Montague, is indicted on charges he took bribes and kickbacks to steer VA contracts to a company that does business with the agency.
January 2014 -- CNN reports that at least 19 veterans died at VA hospitals in 2010 and 2011 because of delays in diagnosis and treatment.
Then there is the Phoenix facility and all the reporting from 2014
At least 40 veterans died while waiting for appointments to see a doctor at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system, CNN reports. The patients were on a secret list designed to hide lengthy delays from VA officials in Washington, according to a recently retired VA doctor and several high-level sources..
VA boss General Shinseki places the director of the Phoenix VA and two aides on administrative leave pending the investigation into the veterans' deaths.
American Legion National Commander Daniel Dillinger says the deaths reported by CNN appear to be part of a "pattern of scandals that has infected the entire system."
The House Veterans Affairs Committee votes to subpoena Shinseki and others in relation to the Phoenix scandal.
A Cheyenne, Wyoming, VA employee is placed on administrative leave after an email surfaces in which the employee discusses "gaming the system a bit" to manipulate waiting times. The suspension comes a day after a scheduling clerk in San Antonio admitted to "cooking the books" to shorten apparent waiting times. Three days later, two employees in Durham, North Carolina, are placed on leave over similar allegations.
Three supervisors at the Gainesville, Florida, VA hospital are placed on paid leave after investigators find a list of patients requiring follow-up care kept on paper, not in the VA's computerized scheduling system.
Shinseki rescinds Phoenix VA director Sharon Helman's $8,495 bonus. Helman got the bonus in April, even as agency investigators were looking into allegations at the facility.
The chairman of the House Veteran Affairs Committee says his group has received information "that will make what has already come out look like kindergarten stuff."
A preliminary report from the VA inspector general's office finds systemic problems at health facilities nationwide, and serious management and scheduling issues in Phoenix.
The emperor accepts Eric Shinseki's resignation.
W.H. report: VA's 'corrosive culture' - POLITICO
Did that end the problems ? No . Here are some headlines from 2016 .
Veteran Burned Himself Alive outside VA Clinic
Dead veterans canceling their own appointments?
VA wait-times still manipulated, whistleblowers say
Report Finds Sharp Increase in Veterans Denied V.A. Benefits,
More than 125,000 U.S. veterans are being denied crucial mental health services..
And it goes on and on .I can find many more examples like the ones I've posted recently . IS it a matter of funding and staffing ? Nope .the VA has the second-largest budget in the federal government ($160-plus billion) and a workforce twice the size of the Marine Corps (340,000-plus employees).
And this is only government run care for Veterans . Imagine how much more chaotic and inefficient it would be when you added 250 million Americans on to the plan.