Enough is a Damned ‘Nuff! Now I am Damned PISSED OFF! ~ Editor
All signs point to a massive money funnel from the Department of Veteran Affairs to private health care interests.
President Donald Trump’s administration keeps denying that the Department of Veteran Affairs is headed toward privatization — just like it couldn’t stop denying that mass layoffs of 80,000 employees wouldn’t impact veteran care. But facts have a way of catching up.
After intense pressure from veterans’ groups and Congress, the administration was forced to walk back its plan — cutting 30,000 jobs instead. Already, though, the VA has lost thousands of health care staff since January — including 688 physicians and 1,882 registered nurses — while still claiming its services remain unaffected.
The budget numbers don’t lie — even if Trump and Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins do.
This year, the Trump administration requested a record-breaking $441 billion VA budget for fiscal year 2026. That’s a 10 percent increase over last year and, in theory, should be good news for veterans and the people who care for them.
Yet, buried in the fine print is a deeply concerning contradiction: Even with the budget expansion, the VA plans to eliminate nearly 3,000 jobs, including over 2,000 from the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), which handles disability claims, education benefits, and more.
In other words, the VA is spending more money — just not on the people who keep the system running. Some are forced to work out of closets due to untenable working environments, while others are being overworked or incentivized to find work elsewhere.
While the administration claims it’s focused on “eliminating waste” and “empowering local leaders,” in reality, it is hollowing out the VA’s internal capacity. VA staff are being stretched thin, even as more veterans enter the system.
Instead of hiring more nurses, claims processors, or crisis responders, the administration is pushing billions of dollars into the private sector via expanded community care programs. This seems less like reform, and more like privatization by attrition.
In the House of Representatives, where the Veterans Affairs Committee advanced the Veterans’ ACCESS Act, the path toward privatizing veterans’ health care becomes clearer. Framed as a way to reduce wait times and empower veterans through online self-scheduling, the bill would expand veterans’ ability to seek care outside the VA system.
No one denies that veterans deserve choices in their health care. But choice without access to quality, specialized care isn’t really a choice at all. Long-term cuts to Medicaid — totaling more than $1 trillion — will inevitably force the closure of many rural hospitals that veterans depend on. And with a hollowed-out or dismantled VA system, these veterans will be left sicker, poorer, and without access to the care they’ve earned.
I Draw the Line. THIS is where he belongs!
The VA’s own internal analysis, the “Red Team” report from May 2024, has been removed from the VA.gov website. It warned that rising costs of private-sector care — $30 billion in FY2023 alone — are threatening to “materially erode the VA’s direct-care system.” This erosion isn’t hypothetical. It’s happening. Staffing shortages are so severe that 82 percent of VA facilities report critical nurse vacancies — and now even more jobs are being cut.
Rather than fix the staffing crisis, the Trump administration is shifting resources away from VA hospitals and clinics and into for-profit care. For example, Trump’s executive order, “Remaking the Federal Workforce,” states: “Upon expiration of the Day 1 hiring freeze and implementation of the hiring plan, agencies will be able to hire no more than one employee for every four employees who leave federal service (with appropriate immigration, law enforcement, and public safety exceptions).” All while the Veterans ACCESS Act flies though Congress. It was introduced six months ago and is already out of committee, in lightning speed for Washington.
Combined with cuts to food assistance that many veterans rely on, reductions in federal agency staffing where one in three employees is a veteran, cuts to housing programs that prevent veteran homelessness, and deep cuts to Medicaid — on which over a million veterans depend — it has never been more clear: Trump and the GOP hate taking care of the veterans.
Written by Michael Embrich for Rolling Stone ~ August 1, 2025