WASHINGTON – The report last week confirming that 1,700 veterans were “at risk of being lost or forgotten” at a Phoenix hospital was hardly the first independent review that documented long wait times for some patients seeking health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs and inaccurate records that understated the depth of the problem.

Eleven years ago, a task force established by President George W. Bush determined that at least 236,000 veterans were waiting six months or more for a first appointment or an initial follow-up. The task force warned more veterans were expected to enter the system and that the delays threatened the quality of care the VA provided.

Two years ago, a former hospital administrator told senators during an oversight hearing that VA hospitals were “gaming the system” and manipulating records to make it appear that wait time standards, the criteria for awarding manager and executive bonuses, were being met.

Since 2005, the department’s inspector general has issued 19 reports on how long veterans have to wait before getting appointments and treatment at VA medical facilities, concluding that for many, sufficient controls don’t exist to ensure that those who need care get it.

For example, in October 2007, the VA inspector general told the Senate Committee on Aging that “schedulers at some facilities were interpreting the guidance from their managers to reduce waiting times as instruction to never put patients on the electronic waiting list. This seems to have resulted in some ‘gaming’ of the scheduling process.”

That’s virtually identical to language in a 2010 VA memorandum – and again in the latest inspector general’s report last week that led dozens of members of Congress to call for VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign. He abided by those wishes Friday, telling Obama he had become a distraction as the administration tried to address the VA’s troubles.

Rep. Jeff Miller, the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, said money is not the problem at the VA. He notes the president has traveled the country touting the spending increases that have occurred in VA’s budget during his presidency.

Spending for VA medical care has nearly doubled in less than a decade, from $28.8 billion in 2006 to $56 billion last year.

“They can’t even spend the money that we appropriated to them. If money could have solved this problem, it would have been solved a long time ago,” Miller said. “It is manipulation and mismanagement that has created the crisis that exists today.”