Another Threat to VA Health Care

A provision in pending Congressional legislation—the Veterans’ ACCESS Act of 2025—threatens to undermine veterans’ health care and saddle taxpayers with staggering costs. At issue is a proposed pilot program allowing veterans with mental health and substance use disorders unlimited private-sector provider appointments without VA authorization. After three years, such unrestricted access would expand across the entire VA system.

As VHPI Senior Analyst Russell Lemle explains in The Washington Monthly, “this proposal represents a dangerous miscalculation that could burden taxpayers with tens—or hundreds—of billions of dollars annually. Yet the fiscal recklessness is only part of the problem. The ACCESS Act pilot amounts to a dismantling of VA health care disguised as a small-scale experiment. By granting veterans unfettered access to the private sector, it accelerates the shift of both veterans’ care and dollars from VA facilities to community providers, steadily gutting the VA system from within.” 

Read his new piece here.