Tricking Veterans: Using Suicide and Mental Health Struggles as a Guise for Privatizing the VA

While public attention remains focused on the looming crisis of VA employees facing termination, an even more ominous threat to veterans' healthcare is advancing nearly unnoticed through the halls of Congress.

Three pieces of legislation are gaining momentum, each crafted to systematically dismantle VA-delivered care under the guise of sympathy for veteran suicide and mental health struggles. These bills could deliver the decisive blow in a longstanding campaign by proponents determined to privatize the VA healthcare system, collapsing the system by pulling funding it needs to care for veterans.

Despite promises of greater "freedom," "autonomy," and "choice," unfettered private sector funding threatens to narrow—rather than expand—veterans' actual options. As resources steadily drain from VA facilities and units disappear, millions of veterans who rely on VA services—particularly those with service-connected conditions—will lose access to the system they prefer. Instead, those funds will go into the coffers of private health care companies.

In a new analysis for Military.com, VHPI Senior Policy Analyst Russell Lemle digs into the worrying provisions of these bills and warns in details about their devastating costs.