$830M in Veteran Affairs cost overruns sparks outrage

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) is slamming the Veterans Affairs Department for funneling dollars away from a program that allows veterans to seek private medical care to cover $830 million in cost overruns for an agency hospital.

A recent cost estimate by the Army Corps of Engineers said a 184-bed replacement facility in the suburb of Aurora, Colo., would end up costing $1.73 billion to build, more than five times the facility’s original $328 million price tag. 

The Denver Post reported on Monday that the VA wants to wipe out some of that red ink by tapping a $5 billion fund set up by reform legislation Congress approved last summer to revamp the department after a months-long scandal over patient wait times.

Lawmakers allocated $10 billion for the program, often called the “choice card,” to allow patients who had been waiting to see a doctor to get private care faster and to take pressure off the VA’s healthcare system.

“The VA hospital in Aurora must be built but the cost overruns need to be paid for without compromising the reforms, recently passed by Congress, to improve the VA’s ability to care for our nation’s veterans,” Coffman, chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, said in a statement late Monday.

“Despite scandal after scandal involving VA bureaucrats, they are unwilling to sacrifice a single dime of their bonus money to pay for their mistakes,” he added. “This is just another example of VA leadership being far more concerned about serving themselves than serving our veterans who have sacrificed so much for this country and who deserve better.”

The VA announced last month that Glenn Haggstrom, principal executive director of the Office of Acquisition, Logistics and Construction, had resigned amid an internal investigation into delays and cost overruns at Aurora and other agency construction sites around the country.