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A battle is raging over veterans’ health care, and Veterans Affairs (VA) workers and the veterans they care for are being caught in the crossfire.
The struggle is on two fronts. One is an effort to move millions of veterans away from the VA system and into privatized care. The other is the Trump administration’s brutal anti-union assault on VA workers.
The result, in Wisconsin and across the country, is high stress and low morale among VA workers at all levels, many of whom are veterans themselves. Milwaukee VA Hospital workers are being threatened and intimidated, losing rights and protections, their union contracts ignored.
“Everyone is terrified, working under fear of retaliation,” one Milwaukee VA nurse said. “I’m not perfect, but I am a very experienced nurse, and I am terrified I’m gonna lose my job. I’m sick to my stomach all the time.”
In one VA hospital unit here, workers were asked to suggest changes they would like to see. All but five of about 60 workers declined, for fear of retaliation, discipline, suspension or termination if they aired complaints. Ultimately, the care their patients receive is bound to suffer, too.
The VA serves 9 million veterans, and vets are happy with the care they get. A national Veterans of Foreign Wars survey this year found 91% of them would recommend VA care to other veterans.
So, why the move to privatize veterans’ care?
Enter the Koch brothers, well-known villains to progressives, billionaire polluters who have used their wealth to sell a far-right agenda. Suzanne Gordon, who will speak at Milwaukee’s Armistice Day event on Monday, Nov. 11, is a journalist who has covered health care issues for decades. She explained, in an interview with The Progressive: “Before the Koch brothers created their Astroturf veterans’ organization, the Concerned Veterans for America—into which they put some $14 million—the VA actually had a very good reputation.
“There were some problems in the VA in 2014 about wait times [for treatment]. Those have been remedied largely, but the anti-democratic right really took advantage of this scandal to tarnish the reputation of the VA. Sadly, the liberal media has largely carried that narrative. The New York Times, CNN—it’s sad. There’s really thousands of scientific studies documenting the superior quality of care in the VA, and the media seems to be immune to the facts,” she said.
So along came “Choice,” a program to move millions of veterans to private care if they had to wait too long for VA appointments or lived too far from a VA facility. Last year, in the name of expanding choice for veterans, the MISSION Act was passed, greatly expanding privatization of care.
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The cost of that private care, billions of dollars, will be stolen from other VA programs, which are more cost-efficient and effective.
The VA has 45,000 vacant positions, including several hundred in Milwaukee. There is no doubt it will have more, leading to more complaints about the system—and more ammunition for the privatizers.
Suzanne Gordon is among those who believe the VA health care system, the largest integrated health care system in the country, is a model for centralized, government-operated health care. That sounds like an actual working example of—dare we say?—socialized medicine. That’s what frightens the right and the profiteers. There is an existing government-run health care program that works very well. So, they want to kill it off.
Bill Christofferson is a member of Milwaukee Veterans For Peace, which is working with the Milwaukee Area Labor Council and others against privatization of the VA. Both groups are sponsors of the Armistice Day event 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 11, at Central United Methodist Church, 639 N. 25th St. The event is free and open to the public.
