Watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste on Friday named Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald its November "Porker of the Month" for doling out bonuses to senior executives involved in the department's ongoing wait-times scandal.
CAGW said in a press release that it gave the award to McDonald for giving millions of dollars in bonuses to senior officials who played roles in the scandal at VA hospitals across the country.
"Despite assurances by Sec. McDonald and President Obama that the wait-times scandal was isolated to Phoenix and that the department has solved the problem, numerous VA inspector general reports over the last year have confirmed that thousands of veterans still languish in the VA's single-payer system," the watchdog group said.
The group's statement noted that data released in June found that the number of patients who waited more than a month to see a doctor exceeded half a million since the start of this calendar year, with no improvement in any single month since then.
More recent data from the VA showed that over half a million veterans had to wait over 30 days for care. Some of the veterans who have been forced to wait have died.
"In the face of this continued mismanagement, an October 28, 2016 USA Today report found that the VA had provided $177 million worth of bonuses to its nearly 189,000 employees in 2015," the press release said. "Included in that total were more than 300 senior executives, some of whom were intimately involved in the ongoing wait-times scandal at the Phoenix VA hospital as well as facilities nationwide."
CAGW's Porker of the Month award is given regularly to those in government who the nonprofit group finds to be spending taxpayer funds on wasteful projects or benefitting only certain people for political reasons. These funds are often called "pork." Recipients are usually senior government officials, including members of Congress.
McDonald raised the ire of many earlier this year after he compared the wait times at VA hospitals to wait times at Disney theme parks.