In 2017, as Washington deliberated over the future of veterans’ healthcare, the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute (VHPI), along with the Associations of VA Psychologist Leaders and VA Social Workers, as well as the Nurses Organization of Veterans Affairs, issued an urgent warning about misguided legislation gaining momentum in Congress, which would make permanent the misguided […]

By: Suzanne Gordon and Russell Lemle for Military.com   VHPI Senior Policy Analysts Suzanne Gordon and Russell Lemle trace a behind-the-scenes negotiation over federal legislation that could drastically damage the VA.   In recent weeks, members of the House and Senate Committees of Veterans’ Affairs have been in intense negotiations hammering out a compromise between […]

By: Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early for The American Prospect VHPI Senior Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early investigate a new plan from the conservative Heritage Foundation, authored by Trump VA alumni, which seeks to tear the VA apart. Read full article

Last week, a bill in the Florida legislature aimed at reeling in unaccredited claims companies passed unanimously in a key committee.

By Bruce Carruthers, Vietnam Veteran and VHPI Steering Committee Member In the recent book These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs – and Wrecks – America, authors Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner detail how corporate control of an increasingly large swath of the U.S.

By Russell B. Lemle, PhD, Senior Policy Analyst Last week, ProPublica, published an article purporting to expose “How the VA Fails Veterans on Mental Health.” In fact, the story ignored crucial context, omitted larger realities, and used isolated anecdotes to unfairly assail the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

By Russell Lemle, originally on Military.com In the VA’s recently released National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report, which covered 2020 to 2021, the suicide rate among women veterans jumped 24.1 percent — far greater than the 6.3 percent increase among male veterans.

By Russell Lemle and Suzanne Gordon, originally in Washington Monthly In 2014, Congress passed the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act, which set up a temporary program that outsourced veterans’ care from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to private sector providers.

By Russell Lemle, originally in Task & Purpose Last week, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a meticulous study that showed veterans have a higher likelihood of dying if they choose care in the community rather than Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals.

By Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early, originally in Jacobin Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the often-hidden wound of war. Post-9/11 wars added hundreds of thousands of former service members to the patient rolls of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) — the nation’s largest public health care system — to get treatment for anger and depression, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, and past exposure to military sexual trauma.

The relentless outsourcing of care from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to private sector providers – and the resulting drain on the VHA budget – has reached a tipping point, one that threatens the future of the nation’s largest and only veteran-centric healthcare system.   The passage of the Choice Program, in 2014, launched that […]

A recent article in The New York Times provides a poignant example of the problems faced by veterans with Other than Honorable (OTH) discharges. Hundreds of thousands of service members who have mental or physical problems acquired or exacerbated by military service are given such discharges as punishment. Veterans who receive a bad paper discharge are not only denied access to VA healthcare, but are also ineligible for any other benefits, including veteran preference when applying for a job.

On November 16th, the VA released its annual National Veteran Suicide Prevention Report, analyzing data and factors associated with US veterans who died by suicide in 2021.

By Paul Sullivan In 2011, a mother in distress phoned me about her son who had just returned from the war in Iraq.

By Paul Sullivan Thanks to bipartisan work in Congress and the President’s signature in August 2022, the PACT Act became law. Since then, a tide of more than a million disability claims have been submitted by veterans to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

National Security Press Release

Today, the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute (VHPI) published a new report focused on how VA privatization threatens America’s national security. The paper is written by Ryan Leone, a medical student at Columbia University who is also a U.S. Army officer and former Presidential Management Fellow at the Department of Defense’s Defense Health Agency.

By Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early in The American Prospect The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been suffering from continuing staffing shortages at the nation’s largest public health care system, which has hampered the ability to directly care for veterans.

By Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early in Beyond Chron The national wave of worker unrest over hospital conditions that create job stress, burn-out, and short staffing reached the corner of Clement and 42ndStreets in the outer Richmond last Wednesday, Oct. 18. Nearly 100 RNs and other staffers from the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC) spent their breaks or lunch hour on an informational picket-line, organized by Local 1 of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), which represents

Rural Health Press Release

Today, the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute (VHPI) published a new report sounding the alarm over a number of misguided Congressional proposals that promise to increase healthcare access for veterans in rural areas. Entitled “The Problem of Rural Veterans Healthcare and How to Solve it,” the VHPI report warns that further privatization of the healthcare system run by the Department of Veterans of Affairs (VA) will weaken healthcare access for the 2.7 VA patients who live in rural areas. By"

By Russell B. Lemle, PhD, VHPI Policy Director VHPI recently criticized the VA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) for providing far too little oversight of the Community Care Network (CCN), a growing cadre of private providers who now deliver a third of VA’s health care. One step in the right direction is a new OIG report regarding CCN providers who prescribe controlled substances for veterans. It contained damning proof how: · Large percentages of CCN providers don’t meet the required sta

By Russell Lemle and Jasper Craven in Task & Purpose The realm of veterans health care policymaking has, for a decade, been dominated by a dangerous libertarian fallacy, namely that greater personal choice and less government involvement are unequivocally advantageous. Allowing more options, lawmakers and advocates contend, benefits every veteran. It’s even framed as a patriotic “defense of freedom.” A pair of bills being actively considered in Congress represent the culmination of this fervent,

By Bruce Carruthers The VA’s Office of the Inspector General recently released its annual staffing shortage report for Veterans Health Administration (VHA) facilities. It shows an alarming surge of “severe” staffing shortages over the last two years. (A severe shortage, broadly defined, occurs when vacancies in a particular vocation are consistently difficult to fill) Between 2021 and 2022, severe staffing shortages increased by 21.8 percent; last year they increased by18.9 percent, leaving ever

By Russell Lemle, The Washington Monthly For four decades, the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Veterans Affairs has played an indispensable watchdog role, helping to ensure that veterans receive high-quality healthcare. Its investigators have repeatedly identified deficiencies in VA patient care and recommended corrections. The Inspector General’s office’s diligence is one reason that the quality of VA’s healthcare consistently outperforms the private sector’s. However, the Insp

By VHPI Policy Director Russell B. Lemle, PhD; Joseph T. Abate, DMD, President, National Association of VA Physicians and Dentists; and Teresa Morris, Director, Advocacy and Government Relations, Nurses Organization of Veterans Affairs “What if VA health care goes away?” That was the headline of a July 6, 2023, Disabled American Veterans news article to its members. The question was not hypothetical. Legislation currently under consideration by the US Congress may make it a strong probability. I

VHPI recently had the opportunity to correspond with Harold Kudler, M.D., one of the nation’s most experienced physicians who has dedicated his career to treating and serving veterans.

Multiorganizational Statement for the Record, SVAC July 12, 2023

By Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early Funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was one of many federal budget items that suddenly became uncertain during the debt ceiling showdown this spring.

The Making Community Care Work for Veterans Act of 2023 has several sections that contain some useful improvements but does not go far enough in addressing problems with the Veterans Community Care Program.

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.

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy continues to fight an unprecedented and unnecessary game of “chicken” with the U.S. Government debt limit, destabilizing the domestic and international economy with his deliberate, inappropriate, and dangerous behavior.

By Russell Lemle and Megan McCarthy, originally in the Federal Practitioner The VA MISSION Act of 2018 expanded options for veterans to receive government-paid health care from private sector community health care practitioners.

By Russell Lemle, originally in The Washington Monthly In 2019, with the number of U.S. veterans dying by suicide surpassing 6,000 for the 11th consecutive year, Congress searched for fresh ideas to address the crisis.

By: Brad Dress, The Hill • The Hill spoke with Suzanne Gordon about the potentially devastating cuts to veterans' benefits.

Earlier this month, the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Health Subcommittee held an important hearing that could potentially lead to the erosion of the veterans’ healthcare system.

By: Diane Reppun, U.S. Army Veteran It has almost become almost a running joke on Capitol Hill. The topic of healthcare comes up and at least one or two sitting members of Congress argue — sometimes verbatim — ‘I can’t get pregnant, why should I have to pay for women’s health?’ For a long time […]

Jay Keyser, U.S. Army Veteran   July 7, 2014 was my 79th birthday. I spent the morning in an ambulance. As ominous as that might sound, it was a blessing. I was being transferred from a not-for-profit private rehabilitation hospital to the Veterans Administration (VA) hospital in West Roxbury, Massachusetts where, over the course of […]

By: Sally Covington   I want to share my story about the amazing care my partner Tom Moore received at the end of his life from the VA.  The story is, in a sense, a tale of two healthcare systems, Kaiser Permanente, a private, profit motivated system and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) a mission […]

By: Denny Riley, Air Force Veteran ​   I was recently given the first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine. It was made available to me because the VA is offering it to all veterans in the system who are 75 or older. ​ Here’s how it went: First, I received a phone call from the […]

By Justin Straughan, Air Force Veteran   When, in 2008, the opportunity to become the first in my family to attend college was swiftly taken away due to the Florida State Legislature’s educational budget cuts, my feelings of overwhelming joy and pride quickly soured to something ugly, festering, and equally powerful. My desire to achieve […]

By Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early President Joe Biden has voiced concern that corporate consolidation has led to what he calls “widening racial, income, and wealth inequality.”

By Suzanne Gordon + Steve Early, for The Progressive When President Joe Biden braved Republican jeers and boos to deliver his State of the Union address in February, one of the few lines that received bipartisan applause recalled Congressional action last year on what he hailed then as the “most significant law our nation has ever passed to help millions of veterans.” Called the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act, this legislation allocates $280 billion over the next decade for

Late last month, the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute, in association with the American Federation of Government Employees, released a comprehensive report on the urgent struggles of thousands of VA employees, and how they threaten to impede the future of America’s best healthcare and benefits systems.

In mid-July, the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs (SVAC) held a hearing to discuss two pending bills that would drastically reshape the provision of private healthcare services through the Veterans Community Care Program (VCCP).

VHPI Staffing Shortage Press Release

Today, the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute, in association with the American Federation of Government Employees, released a comprehensive report on the urgent struggles of thousands of VA employees, and how they threaten to impede the future of America’s best healthcare and benefits systems.

On March 7th, The Federal Practitioner published an article co-authored by VHPI Senior Policy Analyst Russell Lemle and Katherine B. McGuire, Chief Advocacy Officer for the American Psychological Association Services. It’s entitled “The SHOW UP Act Threatens VA Telehealth” and we encourage all VHPI supporters to read it!

Most Americans assume that military service makes all veterans eligible for VA healthcare and benefits. But that is not the case.  Read more here.

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives hurriedly passed the Stopping Home Office Work’s Unproductive Problems (SHOW UP) Act (H.R. 139), a bill that calls into question the contributions of federal employees allowed to work from home and resets telework policies to those in place in 2019.

Most Americans probably aren’t aware that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system, along with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is the best and biggest medical research powerhouse in the United States. Millions of veterans have benefited from VA research breakthroughs, including pioneering treatments for PTSD, Agent Orange, and prosthetics.

This guest essay for Newsday is by Joseph Riotta, a telecommunications industry sales director and VHPI advisory board member whose son Joey is an Air Force veteran.

In recent years, many Republicans have railed against overreach by the “administrative state”—which, in their breathless telling, takes the form of rulemaking by federal agencies that goes far beyond their statutory authority.

For years, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has painstakingly labored to track, research and address veteran suicide. Their exceptional work was dealt an unwarranted blow a month ago with the publication of an incomplete report entitled Operation Deep Dive (OpDD). The $3.9 million study from America’s Warrior Partnership (AWP) examined death data of former service members in eight states between 2014-2018.

By: Russell Lemle and Jasper Craven, Guns & Ammo • Firearm leaders are changing the course of veteran suicide prevention.

A story on VA Privatization by James Martin, AFGE, National Representative, National VA Council (NVAC).

Darin Selnick, a long-time advisor for the Koch-funded Concerned Veterans for America and former Trump veterans’ affairs official, is a tireless foe of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). He’s an equally avid proponent of VA privatization.

VHPI Senior Policy Analyst Dr. Russell Lemle organized a multi-organizational effort to provide written testimony on how to stem the veterans suicide crisis.

Over the past 75 years, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has developed one of the most sophisticated and powerful research enterprises in the United States. Conducting research that benefits veterans is, in fact, one of the four missions of the VA.

By Suzanne Gordon, Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute Published at The Hill On Aug. 10, President Joe Biden signed the PACT Act, legislation which, through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), provides new and expanded health care and benefits to veterans who suffer from dozens of serious illnesses due to a variety of toxic exposures while serving in the military.

By: Suzanne Gordon and Jasper Craven, in The American Prospect • VHPI Policy Analysts dig into the supposed death of the Asset and Infrastructure Review commission, and report on a percolating effort to institute similarly misguided and dangerous closures.

AFGE VHPI Survey Statement

VHPI Burn Pits

Fifty percent of survey respondents report that beds, units, and programs at veteran hospitals have been closed due to staffing and budget shortages

The July 14th House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on the private care program established through the VA MISSION Act was an occasion for more shots across the bow aimed at dismantling the VA.

By: Suzanne Gordon, in The Washington Monthly • VHPI Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon writes a postmortem on the AIR commission, and sketches out the next steps for keeping the VA's infrastructure protected for generations to come.

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By: Suzanne Gordon, in Beyond Chron • VHPI Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon plumbs VA data to understand how a proposed infrastructure plan could hobble VA care in California.

By: Suzanne Gordon, in The American Prospec • VHPI Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon examines the shocking case of a veteran placed into private sector pyschiatric care.

Those concerned about the merit of VA Secretary Denis McDonough’s recently released recommendations for facility closures, renovations, and realignments should give a close reading to an overlooked Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in February.

By: Suzanne Gordon, in The Washington Monthly • VHPI Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon unearths a series of fatal flaws inside a soon-to-meet infrastructure commission tasked with building the department's footprint for the future.

On March 14, VA Secretary Denis McDonough released recommendations mandated by the VA MISSION Act Asset and Infrastructure Review (AIR) process. Weeks earlier, VHPI had obtained the internal market assessments that informed McDonough’s decisions.

By: Suzanne Gordon, in The American Prospect • VHPI Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon reports on drastic new recommendations to shutter VA medical centers in rural and urban areas and eliminate much inpatient care elsewhere, including needed inpatient psychiatric beds.

By: Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early, in Jacobin • VHPI Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early interrogate President Joe Biden's broken promises to veterans through the Asset and Infrastructure Review Commission. The two clearly show that the commission's work is in direct opposition to Biden's pledge to 'Build Back Better."

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By: Suzanne Gordon, in The Washington Monthly • VHPI Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon examines the work and writing of Daniel Gade, a powerful veterans' official with a deep disdain for the veterans' safety net.

By: Russell Lemle, Senior Policy Analyst, in The Federal Practitioner • VHPI Policy Analyst Russell Lemle interrogates the many issues veterans face when seeking high-quality care in the private sector.

By: Suzanne Gordon, Senior Policy Analyst, in The American Prospect • VHPI Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon investigates a dysfunctional Trump-era reform that's making it impossible to hire key VA staff amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the spirit of the New Year, the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute offers a clear and simple set of policy resolutions to Congress, the Biden Administration and Veterans Affairs (VA) leadership.

By: Suzanne Gordon and Russell Lemle, Senior Policy Analysts, in The Hill • VHPI Policy Analysts Suzanne Gordon and Russell Lemle push for fundamental reforms of the VA's highly flawed quality and access standards for private care.

As a former VA psychiatrist who conducted a significant amount of psychotherapy in my practice, I am very concerned about the current lack of adequate standards for mental health providers participating in the department's Community Care program.

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Last week, USAToday ran a feature by reporter Jill Castellano that spotlighted issues around the VA MISSION Act, which is supposed to assure that veterans have easier access to care – outside the VA when clinically necessary.

By: Suzanne Gordon and Russell Lemle, Senior Policy Analysts, in The Hill • VHPI Policy Analysts Suzanne Gordon and Russell Lemle dig into and analyze concerning new data around the proliferation of private care appointments for VA patients.

On October 1, VA Secretary Denis McDonough was interviewed by Jon Stewart, who had just launched his Apple TV show, “The Problem with Jon Stewart.”

Senator Bernie Sanders recently introduced two pieces of overlapping legislation that would positively boost the federal safety net for American veterans in need of dental work.

By: Suzanne Gordon and Jasper Craven, Policy Analysts, in The Washington Monthly • VHPI Policy Analysts Suzanne Gordon and Jasper Craven offer a vigorous proposal on the best move to re-invigorate the VA: nominate a permanent Undersecretary of Health

By: Russell Lemle, Senior Policy Analyst, in The Federal Practitioner • VHPI Senior Policy Analyst Russell Lemle offers a mixed analysis on the VA's firearm policy and examines the power of messages co-signed by credible partners.

By: Suzanne Gordon, Senior Policy Analyst, in The American Prospect • VHPI Senior Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon examines two new distressing surveys by VA clinicians offering urgent warnings about the department's dysfunctional community care program.

Due to deliberate misinformation, the concept of vaccine mandates has become strangely divisive in America, a country that successfully spearheaded the eradication of polio from Earth.

Darin Selnick is at it again. Selnick, a VA privatizer with close ties to the Trump and Koch worlds, has recently helped launch a new anti-VA group called Veterans 4 American First Institute (V4AF).

By: Suzanne Gordon, Senior Policy Analyst, in The American Prospect • VHPI Senior Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon reports on the mounting healthcare costs of the ongoing Forever Wars which, while rarely discussed, will end up being the single largest expenditure in the War on Terror.

Over many years as a clinical psychologist inside the Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD, I was always thinking about how America could better deliver mental health care.

By: Russell Lemle and Suzanne Gordon, Senior Policy Analysts, in The Hill • VHPI Senior Policy Analysts Russell Lemle and Suzanne Gordon report on the urgent need to pass EVEST Act, which would greatly open the door to veteran patients.

By: Suzanne Gordon, Senior Policy Analyst, in The American Prospect • VHPI Senior Policy Analyst Suzanne Gordon reports on the EVEST Act, which, if passed, would help veterans during their tough transition to civilian life.

Earlier this month, Darin Selnick, a VA privatizer with ties to the Trump and Koch worlds, offered his characteristically misinformed opinion piece in Military Times.

A number of serious flaws plague the American healthcare system. I grew up with an insurance policy exemplifying these issues: “Don’t get sick because we can’t afford the doctor bill.