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Veterans Health Administration

VA Amnesia And How To Remedy It?

September 18, 2026 Suzanne Gordon, Substack. , , ,
The other day, I did a presentation with Oscar Arbulu, a Marine veteran and executive director of the organization I co-founded, the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute (VHPI). We spoke about the threats to the VA at a Bay Area Rotary Club and then later at night, we addressed the same topic at the Evergreen Cafe in Berkeley. The Rotary Club members we addressed have a long history of helping veterans. A few veterans were members of the club and some of them used the VA for their healthcare. Other members in the audience included the children of veterans.

How Veterans Are Responding To The Assault On Democracy

September 6, 2026 John Braxton, Labor Notes. , , ,
U.S. military veterans are drilled by their commanders to obey their superior officers. Many still believe it is their duty to support the commander-in-chief even after their tour of duty. But at a time when Donald Trump is undermining the Veterans Administration, attacking unions and other democratic institutions, and instigating illegal wars, could the nation’s 17 million military veterans become key allies in the fight for workers’ rights, democracy, and peace? In their recent book Courage or Complicity? How Veterans are Responding to the Assault on Democracy, Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon provide a wealth of examples showing how veterans and labor can form a powerful alliance for change.

VA’s Largest Community Care Administrator Has A Problem

August 17, 2026 Russell Lemle, Health Care Un-Covered. , , ,
For many veterans grappling with mental health issues, nothing beats sitting in the room with a therapist. Charlie Marg is one of them. His wife, Paige, testified to this last year at a Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs hearing examining treatment in the Community Care Network (CCN) — the VA’s backup pool of private-sector providers: “My husband has utilized telehealth before in some of his referrals to community care. Personally, he would rather choose to see somebody in person… especially when he’s talking about his mental health struggles.”

Which Vets On The Ballot Are Defending VA Care?

July 14, 2026 Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early, Popular Resistance. , , , ,
In this crucial mid-term election year, men and women who served in the military are wooing voters by presenting themselves as tougher, more effective foes of MAGA incumbents and even long-serving Democrats. In Massachusetts, a 50-year old former Marine captain, whose career has inspired other vets to run for office, is playing the vet (and youth) card in his September 1 primary challenge to nearly 80-year -old Senator Ed Markey.           “We can’t just have people who seem like tired old Democrats,” says U.S. Representative Seth Moulton, who is giving up his House seat to challenge Markey. To illustrate his point, Moulton recently did some rhetorical muscle-flexing in May

VA Care Eliminates Poor Outcomes For African American Veterans

July 8, 2026 Ernest Moy, MD, Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute. , , ,
Cardiovascular disease and cancer are the two leading causes of death in the US and racial disparities are common. Compared with White men, African American men are 33% more likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 16% more likely to die from cancer. Compared with White women, African American women are 32% more likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 10% more likely to die from cancer. Over the past two decades, evidence has accumulated indicating that racial disparities observed in the general population are eliminated among Veterans who receive care in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and that African American Veterans treated at VHA actually fare better than White Veterans on a number of cardiovascular disease metrics.

Trump Kicks Dismantling Of Veterans’ Health Care Into High Gear

June 6, 2026 Russell Lemle and Suzanne Gordon, Substack. , , , , ,
Midway through the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s May 20 hearing on the VA’s advance budget request, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) pressed VA Secretary Doug Collins on his view of the future of veterans’ health care. Every net increase in Collins’s FY2028 advance appropriations request was earmarked for care delivered by private-sector providers. To King, the intention seemed unmistakable: a plan “to gradually privatize VA health care coverage.” Collins’s response was withering in its contempt—for the question and the questioner alike: “There is no intention to gradually, there is no intention to accelerate, there is no intention to decelerate, there is no intention to privatize at all.”

The Veterans Administration Is A Model For Public Health Care

May 26, 2026 Suzanne Gordon, Barn Raiser. , , , ,
Bruce Carruthers is a Vietnam veteran who served in the Army and now lives in Waynesville, North Carolina. At age 81, Carruthers could be spending more of his time with his three sons and grandchildren, traveling or focusing on the woodworking projects that he enjoys. Instead, for the last six years, he’s devoted hours each week to stop efforts to privatize the nation’s largest and only publicly funded health care system, run by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Carruthers has a long and deep connection to the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). For 30 years, from 1974 to 2002, he worked first in VHA’s Human Resources department and then in hospital administration

Veterans Say They Won’t Be Fooled By False Promise Of VA Privatization

April 13, 2026 Suzanne Gordon, Beyond Chron. , , ,
On April Fool’s Day, over a hundred veterans, former VA employees and local healthcare activists met at a Veterans Town Hall in the Veterans’ Memorial Building in Santa Rosa, California.  The meeting was called to alert veterans and the local community to the cost and consequences of “The Tragic Dismantling of the VA.”  A number of veterans groups, like Veterans for Peace, Veterans of Sonoma County and local community members who, for the past year, have spent every Friday rallying in front of the Santa Rosa Community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC), sponsored the event.

How Veterans In Labor Have Joined Fight Against Trump

January 13, 2026 Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon, Popular Resistance. , , ,
In the U.S., seventeen million people, across multiple generations, have a shared personal identity based on their past military service. About 1.3 million former service members currently work in union jobs, with women and people of color making up the fastest-growing cohorts in their ranks. According to the AFL-CIO, veterans are more likely to join a union than nonveterans. In a half dozen states, 25 percent or more of all actively employed veterans belong to unions.  In the heyday of industrial unionism in the 1950s and ‘60s, tens of thousands of former soldiers could be found on the front lines of labor struggles in auto, steel, meat-packing, electrical equipment manufacturing, mining, trucking, and the telephone industry.

This Veterans Day, The VA Faces Multiple Threats

November 9, 2025 Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon, Popular Resistance. , , , ,
When veterans and their families gather at commemorative events on Nov. 11, many who use the benefits and services of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will be wondering whether they can still rely on that federal agency. Among those worried about the agency’s future — and their own — are the 100,000 former service members who comprise one-third of the workforce in the largest public health care system in the country. These veterans work at nearly 1,400 VA-run hospitals and clinics nationwide. Every day, they help the nine million men and women who have service-related medical conditions or qualify for VA coverage because of financial need or recent deployment in combat zones. 

DC Rally And Local Events Defend Veteran’s Care On D-Day

June 11, 2025 Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon, Popular Resistance. , , ,
The D-Day anniversary on June 6 is a pretty irresistible date for scheduling a protest related to veterans benefits. Eighty-one years ago, American soldiers and their allies stormed ashore in Normandy, establishing a critical beachhead in the military campaign to defeat Adolph Hitler and Nazism. In World War II‘s aftermath, hundreds of thousands of injured veterans were treated back home in a nationwide network of hospitals run by the federal government. Since then, the VA healthcare system has greatly expanded, and now through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) provides high-quality care to nine million veterans. The majority of those veterans want to see the VHA improved and even expanded.

Critics Of Veterans Administration Cuts Say, ‘This Is Life And Death Stuff’

March 21, 2025 Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early, Washington Monthly. , , , ,
Earlier this month, Vietnam War veteran Paul Cox went to a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical center in St. Louis to visit a sick friend. When he left the hospital, he encountered a woman handing out flyers in its parking lot. “VA workers are being fired,” her leaflet said. “This can hurt your care. This is an assault on the VA. Call or email your Senators and Representatives as soon as you can.” Cox, a leading Veterans for Peace (VFP) member and supporter of its Save Our VA (SOVA) committee, has distributed similar appeals on many occasions, often to support VA caregivers.

Hundreds Protest Trump’s Attacks On VA Healthcare In Milwaukee

March 15, 2025 Jacob Flom, Fight Back! News. , , , , ,
Milwaukee, WI – A March 7 protest outside the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Milwaukee brought out over 300 VA employees and supporters to protest attacks on the VA workforce by billionaires Trump and Musk. It was the largest protest at the site in memory. Ten probationary employees at the Milwaukee VA have been fired without cause since Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” began its scorched earth campaign against unionized federal workers. Government memos suggest that over 80,000 VA employees could lose their jobs if Trump and Musk’s plans are not stopped.

Attacks On Veterans Administration Federal Workers Hurt Everyone

February 17, 2025 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
The Trump administration is attempting an attack on federal workers at every agency and is allowing Elon Musk access to sensitive data. Federal workers are organizing and fighting back. In less than two months, one federal worker union, AFGE, has gained over 16,000 new members compared to 7,400 new members in all of 2024. Clearing the FOG speaks with Suzanne Gordon of the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute about what is at stake and what workers are doing to resist efforts to force them out of their jobs. Gordon also explains why the Veterans Health Administration is a model of health care for the country and the work the VA does to benefit everyone.

VA, AFGE Reach ‘Historic’ Settlement To Reinstate Wrongfully Fired Workers

August 2, 2023 Drew Friedman, Federal News Network. , , ,
Thousands of former Department of Veterans Affairs employees will soon have the option to return to work, after the VA reached a settlement agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees. The agreement will let former VA employees who were terminated for minor offenses under the 2017 VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act choose between either getting reinstated at VA or receiving compensation. Hundreds of other former employees whom VA and AFGE agree had engaged in grievous misconduct will have their terminations upheld.
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