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Health-care delays for veterans and poorly managed information technology are among the U.S. government’s most pressing problems, federal auditors said Wednesday. The issues showed up for the first time this year in the Government Accountability Office’s biannual high risk list, which flags federal programs especially susceptible to fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement. (Hicks, 2/12)

The Department of Veterans Affairs health care system has been declared a “high-risk” operational area of the federal government in a report issued Wednesday by a leading government watchdog. The Government Accountability Office this year added the VA’s health care system to a list of 32 total federal programs especially vulnerable to “fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement.” The VA hasn’t fully addressed more than 100 of the accountability office’s recommendations, some stretching back more than a decade including those that have reportedly harmed veterans, according to the report. (Kesling, 2/11)

Veterans' health care is a "high risk" budget issue that threatens to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars unless longstanding problems are addressed, government auditors warned Wednesday. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office said health care costs at the Department of Veterans Affairs have nearly tripled since 2002 — to more than $59 billion a year — as a result of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the aging of Vietnam-era veterans. Costs are likely to continue to rise as the VA responds to "serious and longstanding problems with veterans' access to care," the GAO said. (Daly, 2/11)

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald on Wednesday asked a Republican lawmaker who served in both Iraq wars, "What have you done?" as the two men sparred over huge cost overruns at a troubled Denver VA hospital. McDonald was defending the VA's budget at a hearing when he and Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman tussled over construction delays and cost increases at the long-delayed hospital project. After a few minutes of arguing, McDonald snapped at Coffman: "I've run a large company, sir. What have you done?" (Daly, 2/11)