When veterans and their families gather at commemorative events on Nov. 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 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 between 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 the 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 the agency’s in-house clinical care budget and pledged to 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 300,000 workers of their collective bargaining rights.

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

Union members at the VA have also blown the whistle on 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 recently signed an open letter warning 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 reminded Congress, the White House and VA Secretary Doug 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 part 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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Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon are co-authors of “Our Veterans: Winners, Losers, Friends and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs” from Duke University Press. Gordon is also co-founder of the Bay Area-based Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute. This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.

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