Here's What Reducing VA to 2019 Levels Will Destroy

VA's proposed cuts of 80,000 of its staff will impoverish, sicken, and kill veterans. And even if you're not a veteran and don't know any, it will hurt you too.

World War II Era VA Nurse Recruiting Poster.

Decimating the VA will destroy the U.S. healthcare system.

Next time you go to the doctor, I recommend asking your provider if she did a rotation at the VA. Chances are, your doctor did part of his residency at VA. On the rare occasion that I go to a civilian provider, whenever I mention that I am a veteran, they overwhelmingly respond “Oh! I did a rotation there as a resident!”

This article will cover what the VA does for YOU, all the legislation passed since 2019 serving veterans, and the devastating potential impact of cuts at VA^.

The VA is Good For Everyone

If you have no interaction with the VA, you probably have no idea how it impacts you: VA trains 70% of the nation’s doctors through partnerships with 90% of the country’s medical schools, as well as tens of thousands of nurses and mental health providers. It’s the country medical reserve-when civilian hospitals got overwhelmed during COVID, VA started treating non-veterans. The cutting-edge medical research that VA does in its unique patient population—veterans start using the fully integrated system as early as their 20s and continue for their entire lives-has revolutionized cancer, mental health, spinal cord treatment, and many other fields.

If VA is decimated and reduced to merely a check-writer, veterans will not only lose fantastic healthcare that serves their unique health needs, so will everyone else.

When I tell most folks I’m a veteran and get my healthcare from VA, the first response is a look of concern and even pity. People remember both scandals and right-wing lies about VA. Some of the scandals did happen but keep in mind—the VA is subject to Congressional oversight, so historically more transparency is demanded than in the private system. Then I explain what my care is like: I get called to schedule an appointment, or if I call I don’t have to wait on hold for very long. I go to my appointment. I get treated for whatever the health condition. Maybe I’ll get referred for labs, which are in the same building and ready to see me. I might be handed a medical device, or one will be ordered for me and show up at my house. I leave.

I’m over 30% disabled. There is no billing. No copays. I show up. I get treated. I leave. My meds show up in the mail at my house (I’ve had them overnighted before). There’s no concern about what needs to be done first for insurance to cover something. There’s no upselling at the Dental clinic (I’m 100%, so I get dental coverage). I just get treated.

I’m also able to work full-time at a white collar job because of VA. I legitimately don’t know if I would be able to work if I didn’t have VA. Managing my health would become a full time job. With VA, because everything is integrated and in-house, you’re not managing a complex system of referrals. Just this week, I had an infection that required antibiotics. I went from calling the triage line to walking out of the medical center with meds in hand in two hours (note: they would have called the meds into the pharmacy of my choice, but the DC VA is 15 minutes from my house and the least hassle).

I moved to DC in 2019 to work on veterans issues on the Hill. The proposed cuts to VA would restore VA to 2019 funding levels. Here is all of the legislation passed since 2019:

Major Veterans Legislation Since 2019

Significant laws enacted since 2019 have expanded or improved veterans’ services. Below is a timeline of major veterans’ legislation and their impact:

• 2019 – Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act: Extended Agent Orange-related health benefits and disability compensation to roughly 90,000 Navy veterans who served off Vietnam’s coast, correcting a long-standing gap in coverage​

  (effective Jan 2020).

• 2020 – Commander John Scott Hannon Act: A comprehensive mental health law to combat veteran suicide. It expanded VA mental health care options (e.g. grant programs for community suicide prevention efforts), boosted rural tele-mental health, funded innovative therapies (animal therapy, sports, art therapy pilots), and created a scholarship program to recruit more VA mental health providers​

  The act’s 34 provisions build on VA services to improve access and early intervention for veterans in crisis.

• 2021 – Deborah Sampson Act (in Isakson-Roe Act): A landmark women veterans’ bill, passed with bipartisan support in late 2020, to improve health care and services for women veterans​. Key provisions included establishing a VA Office of Women’s Health, requiring every VA medical center to have a designated women’s primary care provider, and retrofitting facilities for female veterans’ privacy​. It expanded counseling and treatment for military sexual trauma (MST) survivors, extended VA counseling to National Guard/Reserve members, provided legal and childcare services for women veterans, and enhanced support for homeless women veterans​. These changes aimed to “eliminate barriers to care” for the growing population of women who served​. (P.S., I worked with 85 members of Congress and dozens of veterans groups to write this law)

• 2022 – Honoring Our PACT Act: One of the largest expansions of VA benefits in history, this law addressed the health effects of toxic exposures. The PACT Act added 23+ new presumptive conditions (cancers, respiratory diseases) linked to burn pits and other wartime toxins, making it easier for post-9/11 veterans to qualify for VA care and disability compensation​. It also expanded Agent Orange presumptions to veterans who served in new locations (e.g. Thailand, Cambodia, Laos) and included veterans exposed to radiation and other hazards​. The act opened VA health care eligibility to millions of combat veterans previously ineligible, by extending the post-service enrollment window and creating a one-year open enrollment for lapsed veterans​. It established a framework for the VA to periodically review and add new presumptive conditions based on evolving science​

• 2023 – REMOTE Act & Other Initiatives: In late 2022 and 2023, additional measures improved outreach and services, such as the Solid Start Act (making permanent a program to contact new veterans during their transition) and provisions enhancing VA telehealth and job training. (These were smaller in scope but part of ongoing efforts to modernize VA benefits.)

Legislative Trend: Since 2019, Congress has consistently enacted bipartisan reforms to expand veterans’ access to care and benefits – from specialized services for women and mental health support to broad eligibility for toxic exposure treatment. These laws also increased VA’s resource needs (staff, clinics, funding) to implement the expanded programs. The VA entered FY2024 serving more veterans than ever and with new obligations, notably under the PACT Act​.

Also importantly, all of these bills were bipartisan. Not only were they bipartisan, but they passed the House on Suspension, which means there was no recorded vote-they passed on voice vote with more than two-thirds support. Trump also signed the first three into law.

Proposed Budget Cuts and the Continuing Resolution