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According to a fact check by the Associated Press, President Trump and his Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie are purposely taking credit for improvements made to a veterans healthcare program that started under President Obama.
At a rally in Pennsylvania last week, President Trump said, “We passed VA Choice and VA Accountability to give our veterans the care that they deserve and they have been trying to pass these things for 45 years.”
Trump claims he passed a private-sector healthcare program for vets and that past presidents have failed in doing so for the last 45 years. But, the AP says that is not true. The program Trump is bragging about, Veterans Choice, passed in 2014 under the Obama administration.
Also, VA Secretary Wilkie made another false assertion in a Thursday interview with Fox News, claiming, “The first thing I did was change out the leadership at VA… And, as a result, the Journal of the American Medical Association this year said that our waiting times are now as good or better than any in the private sector.”
Again, that is not true. The AP said Wilkie is “distorting the facts” for saying he has made changes that improved waiting times at VA medical centers and added a new same-day mental health service. Those improvements were enacted under the Obama administration.
