Veteran Trust in VA Has Skyrocketed in Recent Years
Between January 1st and the end of March, the VA surveyed nearly 40,000 veterans who rely on the agency for care, benefits, the G.I. Bill, and other cornerstone services. All were asked a basic question: whether they “trust VA to fulfill our country’s commitment to veterans.” Eighty-one percent of responses answered in the affirmative – a jump of more than 25 percent since 2016. “There’s nothing more important than earning the trust of the veterans we serve,” said VA Secretary McDonough in a press release announcing the news. “Surveys like this tell us what we’re getting right, and what we need to improve — so we can better serve those who served our country.” For decades, the VA was one of the most popular agencies in Washington. According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of Americans with a favorable view of the VA rose from 57 percent to 68 percent from March 2010 to October 2013. According to Pew, public disapproval of the VA doubled following the so-called VA Phoenix scandal, in which national news outlets and conservative politicians weaponized wait-time issues at a single VA medical center to cast the entire agency as dysfunctional. (VHPI investigated this cynical campaign in a special report available here.) VA is currently delivering more care and more benefits to more veterans than ever before, and, in 2024, veterans are at the highest rates since before the pandemic and applying for VA benefits at a record-setting pace. Since Phoenix, more money has gone to VA hiring and infrastructure to meet these needs, but Congress has also earmarked an increasingly large chunk of the agency budget to private care, creating what a recent Red Team report described as conditions that “threaten to materially erode the VA’s direct care system.”
