Dear Veterans, our health care is under attack.
Republicans launched an unprecedented attack earlier this month with a devastating bill that would gut the Department of Veterans Affairs' health care system from the inside out. This is not reform, but dismantling and privatization. And it's financially reckless.
The designers of this attack follow the following lead:Veterans worried about Americaa Koch-backed organization that has been planning to privatize the VA for years. Feel-good buzzwords mask the ongoing dismantling of the very system that millions of veterans and I rely on. Despite a clever marketing attempt, the proposal would strip the Veterans Administration of its core functions and reduce it to little more than a checkbook for private sector (and less responsible) providers.
The Veterans Administration matches or exceeds private sector health care in quality and patient satisfaction. There is built-in oversight that demands continuous improvement and accountability when things aren't working. But despite this reality, those who have something to gain from this privatization plan would rather lose that oversight and poach veterans to lower-quality private providers instead of investing in the VA.
Republican politicians' stance on veterans spending has become an exercise in fiscal fantasy. They are carelessly pushing for unlimited siphoning of veterans funds from the private sector, and the results are abhorrent. March 2024reportThis book, written by six independent medical experts, reveals an alarming reality. Private sector foreign spending is expanding by 15 to 20 percent each year, at an unsustainable rate that threatens to deplete the Veterans Administration system.
Rather than heeding these warnings, my Republican colleagues are doubling down on the very policies that endanger the system. Four of the proposed bills not only ignore the report's findings, but also put more veterans in place and put more money into more expensive private health care with less oversight. By spending more money, we are actively trying to accelerate the problem.
If funding is transferred from the VA to private providers without replenishment, VA facilities will have to reduce staffing and programs that their fellow veterans rely on. If we don't act soon, the Veterans Administration will become just another insurance company. Two of the notes have deceptive names. complete the mission and Veterans' Health Care Freedom The law has provisions to do just that.
The Veterans Administration is being hollowed out in favor of profit. This is not fiscal conservatism. It is a deliberate choice to undermine a valuable public healthcare system and replace it with a more expensive and inferior private healthcare system. It's like watching someone drill more holes in a ship's hull in response to a warning about a leak. And the Republicans are trying to take control. all three branches of government and swing around project 2025 Like their blueprint, the danger has never been more real.
Consider the Trump administration's thinking. Proposed by the Ministry of Government Efficiencyor DOGE. I'm all for protecting public funds – I have a record of: Fighting defense contractors They are jacking up prices on our military. But what I don't agree with is DOGE taking a hacksaw to veterans' health care. New department leaders are proposing cuts to: $119 billion From the VA and its health care programs. If their vision were to become a reality, all types of health care would be effectively abolished, including primary care, surgical care, specialty care, dentistry, and mental health care.
From these risky proposals to the pipeline-to-privatization bill before Congress this month, the stakes could not be higher. 3.5 million veterans receive all of their health care within the Veterans Administration. Many of these veterans have military service-related disabilities, and these bills risk depriving them of the access to specialized care they have earned. The reality is that many civilian health care providers are ill-equipped to deal with complex war injuries, toxic exposure incidents, or traumatic brain injuries. That's where VA comes into play.
Veterans clearly understand our position. Veterans of Foreign Wars HimselfinvestigationVeterans have been shown to overwhelmingly support retaining VA as their primary health care provider. America's disabled veterans testified as much. But proponents of this bill are not listening to veterans or these trusted veterans service organizations.
Selling out the VA would be a betrayal of the veterans who sacrificed for this country. We didn't just go home and watch our politicians dismantle the VA. Patriotic Americans should not ignore this existential attack. Now is the time to speak out.
I hope my fellow veterans will join me in demanding that Congress reject these bills that fragment our health care system. Taking care of our veterans is part of the cost of war, and the American people expect us to pay for it.
Congressman Chris Delzio is a Navy and Iraq War veteran who represents the people of 17 states in Pennsylvania.thCongressional District. He previously served as vice chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.
