Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald declined to apologize Tuesday for his controversial remarks comparing wait times at the VA to wait times at Disney. “Look, as I said, I’m here to improve the veteran experience,” McDonald said during an appearance on MSNBC Tuesday when asked if he was sorry for his comments.
“If I was misunderstood or if I said the wrong thing, I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to correct it,” he added.
McDonald said he had been in contact with few outsiders since his gaffe Monday morning at a breakfast with reporters when pressed on whether the White House had contacted him.
“We get it, wait times are important. There’s no question wait times are important,” McDonald said.
“There’s more to the veteran’s experience than just wait times.”
McDonald cited statistics placing the average wait times for mental health and primary care at three and five days respectively. However, an April Government Accountability Office report questioned the accuracy of the method VA officials use to calculate average wait times.
The VA secretary was responding to a question about whether he would release a more precise measure of veteran wait times when he made his controversial Disney comments.
“Nothing drives me crazy more than our inability to provide timely care for [veterans],” McDonald said Tuesday. “I’m working as hard as I can to do this.”
McDonald said during the breakfast that wait times were not a “valid” metric by which to judge the VA’s performance because it does not account for the entire veteran experience.
“Since I’ve been the secretary, we’ve had about 2,900 people terminated, not all for wait times, but for various offenses,” McDonald said, noting some officials had been fired for their involvement for a nationwide wait time manipulation scheme that was exposed in 2014.
In fact, just three VA officials have ever been fired for participating in an effort to create fake patient waiting lists at 110 agency facilities around the country to cover up long delays in veteran care.
