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THIS VETERANS DAY, THE VA FACES MULTIPLE THREATS  
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Steve Early; Suzanne Gordon
November 7, 2025
The Progressive
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_ As the Trump Administration guts the Department of Veterans
Affairs, VA patients and workers are fighting to save it. _

U.S. military veterans and their supporters rallied in San Rafael,
California, in support of the VA, June 2025., Phil
Pasquini/Shutterstock

 

 

When veterans and their families gather at commemorative events on
November 11, many who use the benefits and services of the Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA) will be wondering whether they can still
rely on that federal agency.

Among those worried about the agency’s future—and their own—are
the 100,000 former service members who comprise one-third of the
workforce in the largest public health care system in the country.

These veterans work [[link removed]] at
nearly 1,400 VA-run hospitals and clinics nationwide. Every day, they
help the nine million men and women who have service-related medical
conditions or qualify for VA coverage because of financial need or
recent deployment in combat zones. 

The fact that so many VA caregivers have first-hand experience with
the military and the resulting wounds of war creates a culture of
solidarity and empathy
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patients and providers that is unique in U.S. health care.

But the Trump Administration doesn’t seem to appreciate the
importance of veterans getting specialized, high-quality services
from a skilled, committed, and union-represented workforce.

Since January, political appointees in Washington have canceled
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contracts of VA researchers developing new treatments that can
save veterans’ lives (and benefit millions of
non-VA patients). VA Secretary Doug Collins has reduced
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agency’s in-house clinical care budget and pledged
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cut 30,000 positions this year. More patients are now
being referred to private sector treatment—which is often
costlier, of lower quality, and not as accessible, particularly in
rural states. And, in a move still being challenged in court, Collins
has deprived
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workers of their collective bargaining rights. 

In 2022, VA doctors, nurses, therapists, and thousands of support
staff members used
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collective voice to block VA facility closings sought by the Biden
Administration. VA nurses have campaigned
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better nurse-patient staffing ratios to improve patient safety and for
the use of lift equipment
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patients and their bedside helpers. 

Union members at the VA have also blown the whistle
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waste, fraud, and abuse involving unnecessary outsourcing
of VA services, which costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars each
year. Recently, 170 current and retired VA clinicians signed
an open letter
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that, if this privatization trend continues, it will “undermine
direct care delivery, overwhelm (the) VA’s budget, and negatively
affect the lives of all veterans.” 

The letter
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Congress, the White House, and Collins that the VA has a long
history of “continuous improvement and innovation,” which has made
it a “respected model for integrated, patient-centered medicine”
as well as “the system that the vast majority of veterans trust
and prefer for their care.”

VA patients and their families have been showing up at local and
national protests against privatization. They are joined
by veterans’ groups that range from progressive to conservative and
differ on many issues but all agree on one thing: saving the VA.

Women veterans—now the fastest-growing
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of the U.S. veteran population—are very active in this fight,
according to Kyleanne Hunter, the former Cobra attack helicopter pilot
who now heads Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. 

“Women veterans need a strong and highly functioning VA because
we have unique needs, not only when compared to those of
male veterans but also to women who are civilian patients,” Hunter
told us in an interview. “Anyone who takes care of
women vets needs to understand the jobs women had in the military
and the injuries and exposures we may have sustained and how that
impacts our health.”

A healthy nation depends on a healthy VA; this Veterans Day,
let’s recommit to keeping it that way.

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_This column was produced for __Progressive Perspectives_
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magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service._

* Veterans; Health Care for Veterans; Veterans Administration;
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