This is an excerpt from an exclusive interview granted to the Gazette by President Barack Obama. The full interview will be published on Sunday.
——
After speaking to Air force Academy graduates on Thursday, President Barack Obama claimed his administration has made “real progress” in improving care for veterans despite years of scandals
“The VA is a massive agency and when we came into office it was underfunded, undermanned, understaffed. We had a lot of work to do,” Obama told The Gazette. “Every single year we have increased the VA budget. We have worked on revamping management. We have made sure that it is customer oriented, and we have seen real progress.”
The Democrat has been in office for almost eight years and his administration has struggled with scandals at the VA including the discovery of secret waiting lists that hid the fact that veterans were waiting obscene amounts of time to see doctors within the VA health system.
Obama has taken action, replacing the secretary of the VA in 2014 and demanding transparency. But still the department has struggled. According to VA reports, more than 25 percent of veterans wait more than 30 days to see a doctor at the brand new facility in Colorado Springs.
This article first appeared in the Colorado Springs Gazette.
