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. That’s the result of dramatic outsourcing of patient care initiated under the VA MISSION Act of 2018. In 2022, 44% of health services were being delivered in the private sector through the Veterans Community Care Program (VCCP).
Recently, Senators Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) introduced legislation – the Veterans HEALTH Act of 2023 – that would swiftly accelerate the massive outflow of resources and patients by providing veterans with unaccountable, unfettered access to private sector care. In the name of offering veterans with more choice, a so-called “veteran preference” option would ultimately lead to disassembly of the VHA, denying veterans the choice of the VHA as a provider of high-quality care that is tailored to their needs. In truth, the Veterans HEALTH Act poses the gravest threat to veterans’ health and well-being in decades. It must not pass.
Read our detailed new analysis on the HEALTH Act here.