Part of the appeal many voters find in presidential candidate Donald Trump, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, is in their contention that government doesn’t work, at least not well or as it should.

Sanders argues that government works, but mostly for the very-rich and special interests. Trump’s common theme is that government is mostly incompetent — it negotiates lousy trade deals that hurt working people and imposes too many regulations, hurting the economy.

The latest news about federal efforts to help veterans waiting for health care services seems to add further proof that the federal government does not work well.

Long wait times for veterans seeking health care through the VA system made news three years ago. Waits of several months or more were being reported by veterans across the country. Media reports revealed that not only were veterans waiting months to see a doctor, but certain VA centers were maintaining fake waiting lists created to suggest that wait times were not long.

In response to the scandal, Congress grilled VA officials leading to the resignation of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs and authorized $10 billion to help fix the wait time problems. Part of the solution, called Veterans Choice, allowed veterans to see doctors outside the VA system if the wait they faced to see a VA doctor exceeded 30 days or if they lived more than 40 miles from the nearest VA health care center.

Recent media reports have found the VA’s efforts have not fixed the problems. In fact, in many cases the wait times and veterans’ frustrations are worse.

Reports by National Public Radio and other news organizations found 70,000 more veterans are being forced to wait more than a month to see a doctor than at the same time last year.

Two years after the wait time crisis was exposed in the media and Congress took action, including providing $10 billion in funding, VA officials are still not providing veterans with timely health care.

Veterans are frustrated with the failure to fix the long wait times. Taxpayers and voters should also be frustrated. Addressing the VA wait time crisis was a bipartisan effort, both Democrats and Republicans were on board, showing their support for veterans. Hearings were held and legislation was quickly drafted and passed, along with $10 billion to fund the Veterans Choice program.

But as so often happens in government, there were problems. To begin with, Congress gave the VA just 90 days to fix the problem — clearly not much time given the scope of the crisis. With all the rules, regulations and layers of bureaucracy, the system is confusing and complicated. Reporters have heard that Veterans Choice is confusing not only to veterans, but also to doctors. Even VA administrators say they sometimes can’t figure things out.

One veteran said, “It takes multiple phone calls, multiple re-faxing of documentation, being on hold for two hours at a time to be told, ‘we don’t have anything on file.’ But the last time we called, they had it, and it was in review.”

Many veterans say they spend hours on the phone trying to get appointments to see a doctor. They fax and re-fax documents. They wait and wait for VA authorization to get treatment from a doctor outside the VA system. Then doctors sometimes wait months and months to be paid for the treatment they provide.

The General Accountability Office says the VA claims process is so backlogged that the VA could spend more on interest and late payments than is paid by Medicare, which processes hundreds of billions dollars more in claims than the VA.

It’s a huge mess.

Accepting that the problem is a big challenge, it’s still troubling that despite so much national media attention, swift and bipartisan congressional action and $10 billion in funding, the problems have gotten worse.

Voters are frustrated when they see government try to fix a problem, one that Democrats and Republicans alike want to see fixed. In this case, the government’s fix needs to be fixed.

No wonder people are asking themselves what can be done to make government work.