IBD Poll: Obama Gets Low Marks on VA Scandal

June 4th, 2014 5:14 PM

Amid Fox’s Howard Kurtz sensing the press is walking away from the VA scandal, Investor’s Business Daily reported a new poll on its front page Wednesday: “Just 29% think President Obama has done a good job managing the VA in the wake of the department's patient-care scandal, according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll, while 43% surveyed say he's done a poor job and 22% rate his performance as only average.”

Sixty-three percent said Obama was either disengaged (29%) or that he "knows more than he claims" (34%) about the scandal.The public also overwhelmingly rejected the liberal claim that a lack of money was the chief reason for the VA scandal:

Fully 70% of those surveyed in the June poll say poor management of available resources was the main problem at the VA; just 20% believe it was lack of money. These views hold true across the entire demographic and ideological range surveyed in the poll.

As IBD reported recently, the VA's budget has exploded in recent years, even as delays worsened. Overall spending by the VA nearly tripled in the past 13 years, and spending per patient has climbed at nearly three times the rate of Medicare spending.

The scandal has also raised concerns among the public about government-run health care in general. More than three-quarters of those surveyed (76%) say they are concerned about "a government health system in light of news stories about the VA situation." Even among Democrats, 58% say the scandal raised concerns.

However, only a slight majority (51%) wanted the former head of the VA, Eric Shinseki, to resign. Shinseki stepped down on Friday amid increasing calls from Republicans and Democrats for him to leave office.

The IBD/TIPP poll shows that the VA scandal has so far not hurt Obama's overall approval ratings. In fact, Obama's job approval climbed slightly to 44% in June from 42% in May. And 43% give him good marks on his overall per formance, up from 38% in May.