The campaign manager for Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I., Vt.) presidential bid said Friday on MSNBC that veterans "like" the scandal-plagued Department of Veterans Affairs "despite some of its problems."
Discussing some ways he felt Republicans could work to fix Obamacare's problems rather than fully repeal it with the American Health Care Act, Jeff Weaver was asked by MSNBC host Katy Tur whether a true single-payer system could ever be a possibility.
"Could single-payer ever work in this country?" Tur asked.
"Absolutely," Weaver said. "We have a number of examples. Medicare, for instance, is a single-payer program for people 65 and over ... The VA is a single-payer program for people who've served in the military. Ask military veterans. They like the VA, despite some of its problems which could be fixed with additional funding."
Tur chuckled.
"The VA has had quite a few problems, Jeff," she said.
The agency came under fire in 2014 when reporting revealed mass negligence, cancelled appointments, and cover-ups that led to long waiting times and even deaths for American veterans. President Obama called the revelations "disgraceful."
The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office wrote a letter to Congress in January laying out the "systemic" human capital issues the department faces.
"VA faces serious and long-standing problems with veterans' access to care and management failures, including ongoing appointment scheduling problems, unreliable appointment wait time data, and inadequate coordination of veteran care between VA and non-VA medical providers," the GAO wrote.
Vermont tried a single-payer health care system that collapsed in 2014 due to exorbitant costs.