NAVAPD Board Meets With Veteran’s Service Organizations
The NAVAPD Board invited members of the Veteran’s Service Organizations to discuss the current administration's assault on VA, VA providers and the impact this will have on community care expenditures. Representatives from Paralyzed Veterans of America and Veterans of Foreign Wars were in attendance. Also invited were the American Legion and Disabled Veterans of America, who were not able to make the meeting.
A robust discussion was had amongst the participants regarding the current state of VA healthcare, possible future directions, including the over-expansion of the use of the community care program and the financial and provider costs that entails.
No one, no matter their political affiliation, would argue against the VA Mission, which has been in place since President Lincoln, that we “Shall care for him who shall have borne the battle”.
In October 2024, the VA published a 127-page report on the quality of VA care as compared to Community Care in several different areas or domains of care. Their own report concludes, “published studies of comparisons of quality-of-care show that Veterans getting care from VA get the same or better quality care than Veterans getting VA-paid community care or the general public getting non-VA care”. In the domains of quality and safety, access and cost/efficiency the VA was better than, or as good as community care. In the domain of patient experience the study found that VA was better than community care.
The VSO’s agreed that VA provides higher quality healthcare in a timelier manner than can be achieved by community providers and they agreed that community providers cannot sustain an influx of patients from VA when most studies show that these providers have a difficult time managing their existing patient base.
It should be noted that care provided in VA, research done in VA and innovations in healthcare discovered at VA, benefit not only veterans, but the entire world. Without VA and the innovations and research done at VA, there would be no cardiac pacemakers, nicotine patches, new diabetes medications, TBI, PTSD, SCI and suicide prevention treatment innovations, among other medical advances. VA sets the standard for care and if the veterans are farmed out to the community, that innovation and cutting-edge breakthroughs will stop.
In the Federal Government, the VA, the DOD and the Postal Service were founded to provide a service to the American public. These entities were never intended to be profit driven enterprises. As such, Free Market Principles and Value Based Models used in private hospital systems do not apply. The VA cannot be compared to the private sector because of the differences in the patient populations we treat. The VA self-selects an historically sicker, more medically complex, more fragile patient population.
All parties agree that there is a place in the VA for ‘purchased care’ but that should be used to supplement VA care and not supplant it. It seems to NAVAPD and other organizations that there is an undercurrent influencing the VA to eliminate the provision of healthcare, have all veterans sent out to the community and turn the VA into nothing more than an insurance provider who pays the bills for the purchased care with no oversight to that care.
NAVAPD has reached out directly to Senators Moran, Blumenthal, Bozeman, Sanders, Murray and Takano to discuss these issues. There has been no response from those offices. NAVAPD will continue to reach out to our Congressional Leaders. We recommend that our members also contact their representatives and stress to them the need to maintain high-quality, in-house VA healthcare. Community Care is not the same as VA Care.
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