Fellow veterans: our healthcare is under attack.
Republicans launched an unprecedented assault on the Department of Veterans Affairs’s healthcare system earlier this month with devastating bills that would gut it from the inside out. This isn't reform: it's demolition and privatization. And it is fiscally reckless.
The architects of this attack are following the lead of Concerned Veterans for America, a Koch-backed outfit that has long plotted VA privatization. Feel-good buzzwords mask the ongoing takedown of the very system that millions of my fellow veterans and I rely on. Despite the slick marketing attempt, the proposals would strip the VA of its core functions, reducing it to little more than a checkbook for private-sector (and less accountable) providers.
The VA consistently matches or beats private-sector care in quality and patient satisfaction. It has built-in oversight that continually seeks improvement and accountability when things aren’t working well. But despite this reality, those with something to gain from this privatization agenda would rather lose that oversight, preferring to farm veterans out to lower-quality private providers instead of investing in the VA.
Republican politicians’ stance on VA spending has become an exercise in fiscal fantasy. They are carelessly pushing for unlimited private-sector siphoning of VA funds, consequences be damned. A March 2024 report authored by six independent healthcare experts laid bare an alarming reality: external private-sector spending is ballooning by 15-20 percent annually, an unsustainable rate that threatens to bleed the VA system dry.
Rather than heed these warnings, my Republican colleagues are doubling down on the very policies that endanger the system. Four of the proposed bills don't just ignore the report's findings — they actively accelerate the problem by pushing more veterans and pumping more money into pricier, private care with far less oversight.
When funding is shifted from the VA into private providers without replacement, VA facilities must cut staffing and programs that my fellow veterans rely on. If we don’t act soon, the VA will be turned into another insurance company. Two of the bills, the deceptively named Complete the Mission and Veterans Health Care Freedom Acts, have provisions that would do just that.
The VA is being hollowed out in favor of profits. This isn’t fiscal conservatism; it’s a deliberate choice to weaken and replace a valued public healthcare system with a more expensive and worse private alternative. It's like watching someone respond to warnings about a leaking boat by drilling more holes in the hull. And with Republicans about to gain control of all three branches of government and wielding Project 2025 as their blueprint, the danger has never been more real.
Take the Trump administration’s proposed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. I am all for protecting public money — I have a record of fighting against defense contractors price gouging our military. But what I am not for is DOGE taking a hacksaw to veterans’ healthcare. The leaders of the new department are proposing cutting up to $119 billion from the VA and its healthcare program. If their vision comes to pass, it will essentially eliminate all types of healthcare, including primary, surgical, specialty, dental and mental health care — and a heck of a lot more.
From these dangerous proposals to the pipeline-to-privatization bills the Congress heard this month, the stakes couldn't be higher. Three and a half million veterans get all their healthcare in-house at the VA. Many of these veterans have service-related disabilities, and these bills would risk eliminating access to the specialized care they earned. The reality is, many civilian providers are not fully equipped to handle complex war injuries, toxic exposure cases or traumatic brain injuries. That's where the VA comes in.
Veterans are crystal clear about where we stand. The Veterans of Foreign Wars' own survey shows that veterans overwhelmingly support keeping the VA as their primary healthcare provider. The Disabled American Veterans testified the same. But the bill's backers aren't listening to the voices of veterans and these trusted veterans service organizations.
Selling off the VA betrays veterans who sacrificed for this nation. We didn't serve only to come home and watch politicians dismantle the VA. Patriotic Americans should not let this existential attack slip by unnoticed. The time to speak up is now.
I hope my fellow veterans will join me demanding that Congress reject these bills that would pull our healthcare system apart. Caring for veterans is part of the cost of war, and the American people expect us to pay it.
Rep. Chris Deluzio is a Navy and Iraq War veteran who represents the people of Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District in Congress. He previously served as vice chair of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
