Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie acknowledged on Wednesday that his agency got a bad deal in paying nearly $2 billion in fees to companies responsible for booking veterans with private doctors. “The department, I admit, was taken advantage of because of the hasty nature that took place when the program was put together,” Wilkie testified […]
The VA’s Private Care Program Gave Companies Billions and Vets Longer Waits
For years, conservatives have assailed the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as a dysfunctional bureaucracy. They said private enterprise would mean better, easier-to-access health care for veterans. President Donald Trump embraced that position, enthusiastically moving to expand the private sector’s role. Here’s what has actually happened in the four years since the government began sending […]
Secret VA nursing home ratings hide poor quality care from the public
World War II veteran Rosario “Russ” Bonanno was facing worsening dementia when his family brought him last year to the Department of Veterans Affairs nursing home in Bedford, Massachusetts. He had been in assisted living, but after six years, some family members thought he needed more specialized care. Within days after Bonanno arrived, his son Nick said […]
The Battle for VA Healthcare and Its Funding
VA healthcare has its faults; but, it still is one of the more successful examples of publicly funded healthcare even while hampered by a lack of funding to provide more capacity in strategic places for new Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and aging Vietnam veterans like myself. Libertarian Pete Hegseth, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq […]