VA Health Care: Contract Labor Cost Analysis in RAND Study
Abstract
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) spent about $23 billion to provide health care to over 4 million veterans in fiscal year 2002. To provide this care, VA relied primarily on its own employees, totaling about 190,000. VA also used contract employees, sometimes referred to as contract labor, to provide these services. In response to the requirements of the Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act of 1998 (the FAIR Act),1 VA compiled an inventory of more than 180,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions that it determined to be health care commercial in nature. This means that the work carried out in these positions is also done in the private sector and could potentially be done by contract labor. As part of its management initiatives, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has emphasized that competition should be used to determine the most effective and efficient way to provide commercial services. The process used to make this determination- referred to as competitive sourcing- is established in OMB Circular A-76. This process generally provides for competition between the government and the private sector on the basis of costs or costs and other factors. OMB has established competitive sourcing FTE targets for federal agencies to achieve as part of OMBs management initiatives. In response to OMBs FTE target for VA, VA established a plan to complete studies of competitive sourcing of 55,000 positions by 2008.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 30, 2003
- Accession Number
- AD1180558
Entities
People
- Cynthia A. Bascetta
- Daniel Montinez
- James C. Musselwhite
- Thomas A Walke
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office