Cherry Hill, NJ – Earlier this week, the Associated Press issued a report detailing the wait times for veterans seeking medical care at our nation’s VA medical facilities. From August through February, nearly 894,000 appointments were delayed longer than 30 days – falling short of the VA’s own timeliness goal. Nearly 232,000 of those appointments were delayed longer than 60 days. Congressman Donald Norcross (NJ01) issued the following statement in reaction to the AP’s report: 

“It is completely unacceptable that the men and women who served our nation continue to experience delay after delay in obtaining medical care. This report is just another reminder of how we have failed our veterans. While I understand you can’t fix a problem simply by throwing money at it, we need to invest in our veterans health services more than ever. With an aging veteran population and increased demand for services, we need to ensure that the doctors, nurses and medical staff are there to assist when needed most and we absolutely must modernize our VA facilities once and for all so they can deliver the same top-rate care that’s being offered outside the VA. 

“As a Member of the Budget Committee, I supported an effort that would have added $1.9 billion to revamp the VA’s health care system and provide much-needed mental health and long term care services to our veteran population. This critical funding was rejected simply on the basis of partisan politics. We need to come together and put the politics aside to finally deliver timely care at our VA facilities because continuing the status quo is completely unacceptable.”

###