Former VA Secretary Dr. David Shulkin joined VHPI Executive Director Brett W. Copeland and VHPI Senior Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon for a discussion about his new book It Shouldn’t Be This Hard to Serve your Country: Our Broken Government and the Plight of Veterans.

Former VA Secretary Dr. David Shulkin joined VHPI Executive Director Brett W. Copeland and VHPI Senior Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon for a discussion about his new book It Shouldn’t Be This Hard to Serve your Country: Our Broken Government and the Plight of Veterans.

Sixty million Americans,19.3% of the population, live in rural areas – including millions of veterans. Many veterans who are lucky enough to be eligible to get care from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) complain of having to drive hours to get care.

The VA MISSION Act has officially rolled out and VA staff have begun to refer veterans to private sector providers in the Community Care Network.

Starting June 6, the VA MISSION Act will refer many veterans out to the new Community Care Network. One of the main Wilkie / Stone talking points about this change is ‘convenience’ and the idea that more veterans will be cared for more quickly (a claim unlikely to occur given that the VA overall has the same or better wait times than the private sector).

Over the last two decades, as suicide rates in the US have climbed 33 percent, the rates for veterans who use the services of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has remained relatively steady.