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

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.

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 […]

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

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 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

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 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 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.”

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.

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.

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

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.

AFGE VHPI Survey Statement

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

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.

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."

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.

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

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.

By: Suzanne Gordon, VHPI Senior Policy Analyst, in the American Prospect • Suzanne Gordon reported about the threats of the VA's impending Asset and Infrastructure Review Commission

A recent study by Stanford University economists categorically demonstrates that veterans who get their care at the VHA live longer during and after a medical emergency,

Lewis “Skip” Delano deployed to Vietnam in 1968 after growing up farming in Virginia and Maryland.

Veterans are served by and serve at the United States Postal Service. Like the military, the Postal Service serves society at-large and it is based on a communal culture intended to fulfill the aims of American society.

By: Suzanne Gordon & Jasper Craven • Trump’s VA Secretary insisted before Congress that hiring to fill 50,000 vacancies at the Department of Veterans Affairs shouldn’t be a priority. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed America’s worst-kept secret. Our nation has failed to provide its citizens with an adequate healthcare system that is flexible enough to regularly care for us and respond swiftly and equitably in times of crisis.

Is Trump’s Dept. of Veterans Affairs too Broken to Fight COVID-19? April 7, 2020 “HOW INACTION, INCOMPETENCE, AND POLITICAL AGGRESSION INFLICTED UPON THE VA AN UNPRECEDENTED VACANCY CRISIS AHEAD OF A GLOBAL HEALTH PANDEMIC” FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Oakland, California (4/7/2020) – Years of chronic understaffing, privatization, and attacks on employees by Trump administration officials have […]

By: Suzanne Gordon & Jasper Craven • How a suicide prevention bill became another way to privatize the Department of Veterans Affairs.

As the current VA leadership uses the MISSION Act of 2018 to increase the outsourcing of more and more veteran care from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to the private sector, more and more psychologists and other mental health providers insist that they are willing, eager, and prepared to do their bit for veterans.

By: Suzanne Gordon & Jasper Craven

Congress Must Not Rush to Close VA Facilities June 20, 2019 Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute Senior Analyst delivers testimony to the Congressional Committee on Veterans’ Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute submitted the following Statement for the Record to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs in advance of the Full Committee Legislative […]

By: Suzanne Gordon • High risks potentially await veterans as the VA MISSION Act is launched. It’s likely that high cost awaits American taxpayers, too.

By: Suzanne Gordon • VA officials admitted that the VA MISSION Act would likely ‘stumble’ in its first days of implementation. One veterans’ advocate warned of the problems veterans could face from the private sector.

By: Suzanne Gordon • Health Care While Denying It

By: Suzanne Gordon • Access standards are driving the conversation around the VA MISSION Act’s implementation — not the clinical needs of veteran patients.f

Drive time should never beat quality in veterans’ health care January 30, 2019 VHPI warns that the VA’s new privatization scheme will ultimately limit veterans’ choice of high quality health care providers FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Brett Copeland202-210-8879 | execdirector@veteranspolicy.org (Washington, D.C. | January 30, 2019) – In response to Secretary Robert Wilkie’s announcement, The […]

By: Jasper Craven & Suzanne Gordon • Steven A. Cohen has hired lobbyists in D.C. while expanding his network of veteran mental health clinics. Is he ‘greasing the wheels of VHA privatization?’

On December 5, 2016 a group of northern California veterans, health care professionals and citizens met to discuss the challenges and imminent threats facing the Veterans Healthcare Administration (VHA).