United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2006-02-01 monographic deposited born digital 22 p. GA 1.13:GAO-06-359R https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-359R P0b002ee180387aac f:d06359r DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-24 GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-359R machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-359R GAO-06-359R Budget controllability Health care services Presidential budgets Veterans benefits Financial analysis Financial management Budget requests Correspondence A46278 The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides a uniform set of health care services to eligible veterans who enroll to receive such care and seek it from VA. These services include preventive and primary health care, a full range of outpatient and inpatient services, and prescription drugs. VA provides additional services, such as nursing home and dental care and other services, as required by law for some veterans and makes these services available to other veterans on a discretionary basis as resources permit. Most of the nation's 24 million veterans are eligible for some aspect of VA's health care services if they choose to enroll. In fiscal year 2005, about 7 million veterans were enrolled to receive VA health care services. In that year, VA planned to provide health care services to about 5 million veterans based on its initial budget request of $ 30.2 billion. Funding for VA's health care program has increased substantially in recent years. Congress appropriates funds annually for VA to provide health care services to eligible veterans. Congressional budget deliberations start when the President submits his annual budget request to Congress as the Budget of the United States Government. This is soon followed by VA providing the Congress with a more detailed budget justification of the President's policy and funding proposals for its programs. In each of the President's budget requests for fiscal years 2003 through 2006, the proposals assumed implementation of management efficiency initiatives that would save money without reducing the quality of service. Indeed, over these 4 fiscal years, the President's budget proposals assumed that these initiatives reduced funding requests by billions of dollars. Since savings from management efficiencies were expected to help reduce the level of annual appropriations, Congress asked us to examine (1) VA's methodology for projecting the health care management efficiency savings that were assumed in the President's budget requests for fiscal years 2003 through 2006 and (2) VA's support for reported actual savings achieved through management efficiency initiatives during fiscal years 2003 and 2004--including the methodology and documentation used to track and report achieved savings. We also summarized prior GAO and VA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reports that have identified management inefficiencies at VA. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-359R/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-359R.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-359R/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-359R.pdf GAO-06-359R https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-359R Correspondence GAO-06-359R; Veterans Affairs: Limited Support for Reported Health Care Management Efficiency Savings; Budget controllability Health care services Presidential budgets Veterans benefits Financial analysis Financial management Budget requests Volume 118 Page 3285 118 Stat. 3285 Volume 119 Page 499 119 Stat. 499 Public Law 108-447 Public Law 109-54