Except he knew about them six years ago.
Via Mediaite:
President Barack Obama first learned of the scandal involving hospital administrators with the Department of Veterans Affairs concealing the true wait times vets faced in the press, according to a claim made by White House Press Sec. Jay Carney on Monday. While the president may have not been aware of the falsified wait lists, however, reports indicate that his administration was informed of excessive wait times at the VA as early as 2008. Obama even campaigned on the issue of VA waiting lists in 2007.
“When was the president first made aware of these problems?” CNN reporter Jim Acosta asked. “These fraudulent lists that were being kept to hide the wait times?”
“You mean the specific allegations that were first reported by your network out of Phoenix, I believe, we learned about them through reports,” Carney replied. “That’s when, as I understand, Sec. [Eric] Shinseki learned about them.”