By Bruce Carruthers, Vietnam Veteran and VHPI Steering Committee Member In the recent book These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs – and Wrecks – America, authors Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner detail how corporate control of an increasingly large swath of the U.S.

By Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early in Beyond Chron The national wave of worker unrest over hospital conditions that create job stress, burn-out, and short staffing reached the corner of Clement and 42ndStreets in the outer Richmond last Wednesday, Oct. 18. Nearly 100 RNs and other staffers from the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC) spent their breaks or lunch hour on an informational picket-line, organized by Local 1 of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), which represents

By Russell Lemle and Jasper Craven in Task & Purpose The realm of veterans health care policymaking has, for a decade, been dominated by a dangerous libertarian fallacy, namely that greater personal choice and less government involvement are unequivocally advantageous. Allowing more options, lawmakers and advocates contend, benefits every veteran. It’s even framed as a patriotic “defense of freedom.” ,

By Bruce Carruthers The VA’s Office of the Inspector General recently released its annual staffing shortage report for Veterans Health Administration (VHA) facilities. It shows an alarming surge of “severe” staffing shortages over the last two years. (A severe shortage, broadly defined, occurs when vacancies in a particular vocation are consistently difficult to fill) Between 2021 and 2022, severe staffing shortages increased by 21.8 percent; last year they increased by 18.9 percent…

By VHPI Policy Director Russell B. Lemle, PhD; Joseph T. Abate, DMD, President, National Association of VA Physicians and Dentists; and Teresa Morris, Director, Advocacy and Government Relations, Nurses Organization of Veterans Affairs “What if VA health care goes away?” That was the headline of a July 6, 2023, Disabled American Veterans news article to its members. The question was not hypothetical. Legislation currently under consideration by the US Congress may make it a strong probability.

By Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early Funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was one of many federal budget items that suddenly became uncertain during the debt ceiling showdown this spring.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has long administered the most successful healthcare system in the country. As a recent summary of research yet again confirms, the quality of care delivered by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is as good as or better than the care veterans receive from VA-paid community care or the general public obtains through private care. Quite distressingly, however, the VHA is straining to maintain its workforce and programs.

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy continues to fight an unprecedented and unnecessary game of “chicken” with the U.S. Government debt limit, destabilizing the domestic and international economy with his deliberate, inappropriate, and dangerous behavior.

By Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early President Joe Biden has voiced concern that corporate consolidation has led to what he calls “widening racial, income, and wealth inequality.”

In mid-July, the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs (SVAC) held a hearing to discuss two pending bills that would drastically reshape the provision of private healthcare services through the Veterans Community Care Program (VCCP).

Today, the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute, in association with the American Federation of Government Employees, released a comprehensive report on the urgent struggles of thousands of VA employees, and how they threaten to impede the future of America’s best healthcare and benefits systems.

Most Americans probably aren’t aware that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system, along with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is the best and biggest medical research powerhouse in the United States. Millions of veterans have benefited from VA research breakthroughs, including pioneering treatments for PTSD, Agent Orange, and prosthetics.

This guest essay for Newsday is by Joseph Riotta, a telecommunications industry sales director and VHPI advisory board member whose son Joey is an Air Force veteran.

In recent years, many Republicans have railed against overreach by the “administrative state”—which, in their breathless telling, takes the form of rulemaking by federal agencies that goes far beyond their statutory authority.

A story on VA Privatization by James Martin, AFGE, National Representative, National VA Council (NVAC).