This isn’t a new thing. Trump’s pick to head the DOD was considered for the job of running (into the ground) the VA back in but thankfully Shulkin got the job. Damage was done but not nearly as much as might have been. Part of why Hegseth was considered back then was his advocacy for completely privatizing the VA Healthcare system, a long-time goal of a LOT of conservatives. I’ve been wondering why Hegseth’s views on the VA haven’t come up yet even with the media as cowed by Trump and MAGA as it is these days. Well, FINALLY it’s out in the open.
This CNN article delves into the situation we, and we Veteran’s who depend on the VA are facing. Hegseth might not have gotten truly serious consideration to head the VA back when Dr. David Shulkin was named but that doesn’t mean Trump didn’t want Hegseth’s input into it. According to the linked article Trump was known to demand someone call over to Fox and get Hegseth on the phone! Trump’s wanting to salvage this current nomination suddenly makes more sense to me now. It’s not well known but Trump had a troika of doctors down at Mar A Lago who he was pals with. He unofficially tasked them with ‘taking a look’ at the VA and ‘making suggestions.’ Suggestions on moving towards privatization which I guess ranged from small acts of sabotage to services to promoting cutting the budget and playing up wait times to get us to use community providers.
Trump is making a bolder play this time. We know other things Hegseth wants to do but this is going to get a rise out of even goobers who didn’t like women serving with them back in the day. THIS is messing with something they hold dear. And I say it’s a bolder play on Trump’s part because it’s a one-two punch as he’s tabbed Doug Collins, another ‘privatize it all’ advocate to head the VA:
Hegseth, now Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of defense, had been a vocal and persistent advocate for veterans having unfettered access to private health care, rather than having to go through the VA to keep their benefits. He’s also lobbied for policies that would restrict VA care and believes veterans should ask for fewer government benefits.
“We want to have full choice where veterans can go wherever they want for care,” Hegseth told Trump on speakerphone as Shulkin listened, according to Shulkin’s 2019 memoir.
Trump’s pick to serve as the next VA secretary, Doug Collins, has also expressed support for greater privatization of veteran health care, which advocates characterize as giving veterans greater choice over their doctors. If veterans “want to go back to their own doctors, then so be it,” he told Fox News last month.
The linked article has plenty more to say. It’s worth your time and as not only a Veteran but one who relies on the VA Healthcare system I humbly ask you to read it. Then take the information you glean and use it to contact your elected critters on Capitol Hill – as in Hands Off the VA! The article makes note of Hegesth’s attitude which is that those who served shouldn’t go asking the govt. for help. Hell, he wants funding cut for health services from military facilities to active duty personnel! WTF? The plain fact is that service in the military comes with unique medical and mental challenges that have to be treated. Having a cadre of health care professionals who are well-versed with specialized knowledge and experience dealing with matters the average civilian provider/institution does not.
I doubt this will get much attention on tomorrows Sunday news talk shows. Most of the interviews are conducted on Sat. mornings and from what I can tell this didn’t turn into something various news outlets were talking about until (probably) most of those interviews were recorded. However Veteran’s groups are already ramping up and this WILL I predict become a BFD come Monday. Perhaps enough to finally tank Hegseth’s nomination? We’ll have to wait and see. It’s clear this weekend the strategy has become to downplay Hegesth’s drunken, rapey behavior as ‘boys will be boys’ type stuff that’s all in the past. It’s not of course but that’s what Team Trump is selling.
In any case even if this new issue sinks Hegseth’s nomination the issue of Trump’s war on the VA Healthcare system is over. In the blocked quote it mentions Doug Collins and I fear HE will wind up being confirmed. At the very least he can muck things up and try to create a strong sense of dissatisfaction among those of us who utilize the VA for our healthcare. Under Shulkin the efforts to throw sand in the gears was there but not like what I think will be coming. And this time around I don’t think with someone like Collins, whether Hegseth is backing him up or not will be all that concerned about being subtle. For someone who wants to do so it’s not hard to imagine ways in which to piss off Veterans about their VA healthcare.
I can speak personally to two subtle changes that pissed me off. (Not at the VA but Trump) I’d never had problems getting prescription renewals in the mail until Trump came along. And yes, I went through some trying times and was in a bad enough place to need mental health services. I got a great counselor who helped a lot. It was a long course of treatment that was extended twice, but something happened during it. Instead of a set weekly appt. it was more every ten days unless my counselor felt I needed to come in sooner. At the end of a given session he’d open the calendar on his computer, I’d pull out my phone and we’d set the next appt. Simple. Easy. Done. Then the Trump changes happened and instead of that on-the-spot scheduling he had to put in a request with a suggested date/time. And I’d have to wait for someone to call me to confirm, or perhaps even try to change it!
I can’t help but wonder how screwing with people’s counseling harmed Veterans in much more mental crisis than I was. Or how much more difficult it was for those who needed mental health services to get approved for them.
What people often don’t get about the VA Healthcare system is that it’s pure Socialized Medicine. Have there been issues at times with some facilities? Yes. But the system has NEVER been fully and properly funded. Never. Also, overall the annual surveys of those who utilize the VA Healthcare system has given it high marks. As good or better than any health care company/network in the country. I will fight like hell to keep my VA Healthcare. I hope you will help me and others to do so.
And remember why conservatives HATE it so much. I mentioned before it’s pure Socialized Medicine and it provides quality, and sometimes cutting edge health care. And, despite some hyped problems at a couple of facilities and issues with wait times the overall satisfaction with the system is high. The wait times would be reduced if Congress would increase the VA’s budget and fully fund the system! That’s the answer. What conservatives are afraid of is other people looking at the VA Healthcare System and asking why THEY don’t have access to something similar? Personally I think every American should have access to the kind of health care I get and for the price (my co-pays are quite affordable) I pay. That means some sort of single payer or govt. funded health care system for all.
The VA is an example of how WELL it can work. So conservatives are hell-bent on destroying it. Hegseth would be in a helluva position to do just that. And even with someone else heading DOD we’ll still have Collins to contend with. For now, start drafting notes/emails to your Congress Critters and especially Senators. And organizing your thoughts to also phone their offices. Both local and in DC. And please follow through. AND encourage everyone you know to do the same.
My deepest thanks to those who have read this and will take action.
Privatize = Let us and our friends take it over for nothing or close to nothing, and then introduce ever-growing charges for anything and everything so that me and my friends can profit enormously.
Or more simply
Privatize = Theft.
My MIL’s medicaid is now charging a copay for everything. She is a dementia patient with about $40/mo left over after paying the facility. The co-pays are low now, but they will surely go up or she will lose all benefits totally.
Our local VA is great!! There are only wait times for appointments for very specialized doctors because there are only a few in the facility. But it’s always worked well with professional staff, courteous staff, respectful staff. Why mess with it to give the millionaires/billionaires more money? Oh, answered my own question.
Eventually they will strip everyone’s benefits because they think that we don’t deserve the social security we paid in all of our lives to. If higher income people would continue to pay in to social security after they reach the cap (only about 4 months a year), there would be more money and no worries. Medicare, medicaid, snap, welfare, are all “hand outs” that are keeping the wealthy from getting richer. So we will lose so they can win.
I’m really starting to hate this country. I wish I could say that wasn’t so.
It isn’t just the VA Hegseth would destroy! Back in April 2019, Hegseth and Kilmeade (what a brain trust!), argued that veterans should not apply for any “handouts” (benefits) because that lacks “personal integrity!” 🤬
https://www.mediamatters.org/brian-kilmeade/foxs-pete-hegseth-brian-kilmeade-criticize-american-veterans-who-apply-every
I think you are downplaying the problems in the bad facilities. They weren’t just minor glitches, but flat-out terrifying and major atrocities. When I wrote at Daily Kos, I had an acquaintance whose husband had some major health issues and depended on the Gainesville facility.no remember in horror the time he sat in the ER with his foot black ending from.circulatory problems that could have cost him his foot.Another time he had a PTSD attack. The waiting room TV was on Fox covering the Iraq War and it wss making his mental health issues worse. He turned it off. A nurse came in and demanded he turn it back on. As s soon as Nurse Ratchets stomped off, he turned it off again. She called security on him. My friend had.far too.many stories like that.