As conservatives and congressional Republicans seek to dismantle the Veterans Health Administration, members of the commission called for giving veterans more private-sector options.
Suzanne Gordon
Suzanne Gordon is a senior policy analyst at the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute, as well as a journalist and co-editor of a Cornell University Press series on health care work and policy issues. Her latest book, co-authored with Steve Early and Jasper Craven, is Our Veterans: Winners, Losers, Friends, and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs (Duke University Press). She has won a Special Recognition Award from Disabled American Veterans for her writing on veterans’ health issues, much of which has appeared in The American Prospect. Her website is www.suzannegordon.com.
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
Union Conducts Nationwide Anti-VHA Privatization Protests
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest labor union representing federal and District of Columbia government workers, announced Tuesday that about 40 anti-VHA privatization rallies will be held nationwide. The move comes as the VA Commission on Care, the congressionally-mandated body tasked with making recommendations about the future of Veterans Health Administration, closes […]
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McCain Pulls a Bait-and-Switch on Vets
Almost as soon as Senator John McCain had finished working with Senator Bernie Sanders to craft the veterans’ health-care bill now known as the Choice Act in 2014, the Arizona Republican set out to renege on his promise that Choice would be temporary, and began floating plans to make it permanent. Part of the Choice […]
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The Hidden Irony of GOP Outrage over the VA Secretary’s Disney Comparison
Poor VA Secretary Bob McDonald. Neither he nor the Veterans Health Administration he oversees can ever catch a break. On May 23, a reporter questioned McDonald about the VHA’s tracking of patient appointment times around the country. McDonald’s predecessor was forced to quit over allegations of appointment delays and a cover-up at a Phoenix VHA […]
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Veterans’ Groups: Don’t Scrap the VA’s Health Care System
As they meet again in Washington, D.C., this week, the congressionally mandated Commission on Care, tasked with determining a 20-year strategic plan for the Veterans Health Administration, would do well to heed the voices of veterans and veterans service organizations that it has too often sidelined from its deliberations. In its April meeting, the commission […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Group Drafts Secret Proposal to End Taxpayer-Funded Veteran Care
Deliberations by the Department of Veterans Affairs Commission on Care, the congressionally mandated group planning the future of the Veterans Health Administration, have, as The American Prospect has reported, become increasingly marred by controversy. When the 15-member commission met in Washington in mid-March, another furor erupted. A recently uncovered proposal to privatize the VHA set […]
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House Veterans Affairs Chairman Blasts Health-Care Commission Member
The VA Commission on Care, the 15-member bipartisan body created by Congress to make recommendations about the future of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), has been meeting for months and plans to publish its findings in June. Until this week, Congress had not interfered with the commission’s supposedly independent deliberations. That all changed on March […]
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Congressional Commission Moves Toward Privatization of VA
The Commission on Care-a congressionally mandated federal body tasked with evaluating alleged shortcomings at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA)-is deliberating largely behind closed doors and, according to sources close to the deliberations, may have a heavy bias towards privatization. This is ironic because one of the critiques against the VHA has been its purported lack […]
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The Times’s Sloppy Reporting on Sanders and Veterans Health
On Sunday, The New York Times published a wildly misleading front-page story titled, “Faith in Agency Clouded Bernie Sanders’ V.A. Response.” The gist of the piece was that Sanders, blinded by his friendliness to government agencies, did not acknowledge the VA scandal of long wait times for services until very late in the game. But […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Report: VA Outperforms Private Sector on Key Measures
A little-noticed report by a trio of leading research groups found the Veterans Health Administration outperforms private sector health providers on several key measures.