Veterans were promised they’d be cared for after serving our country. But too often, our nation doesn’t fulfill that promise. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) regularly acts as a barrier to veterans in need of timely, quality health care, and it puts the needs of its own bureaucracy above the needs of the veterans it exists to serve.
This is unacceptable. Veterans were called to serve to defend our nation, and they’ve earned the care they were promised.
Help us #completethemission to ensure veterans can keep access to essential care.
Veterans are being denied the care they earned through their service to our country.
The VA MISSION Act, signed into law in 2018, allows more veterans access to care from community providers. But unfortunately, the VA has put up road blocks every step of the way.
The VA consistently manipulates wait times for appointments to make them appear shorter. The department also misguides veterans about their options. This serves to keep veterans in the backlogged, bureaucratic VA system—even when veterans do know to ask schedulers and providers for community care, they are often given the runaround, persuaded against using that option, or denied altogether, despite what the law requires.
Veterans should have the freedom to make their own choices when it comes to health care providers based on what is best for their unique needs as the VA MISSION Act intended.
The VA has proven time and again that veterans are not always put first in their health care. Read more stories of corruption, manipulation, and mistreatment at the hands of the VA.
Wait times and appointment backlogs will only grow unless the VA implements the VA MISSION Act as it was intended, allowing veterans the option to receive care through community providers. In addition to ensuring adequate network capacity to meet the needs of the veteran population, Congress should also keep a close eye on VA and community care wait times to make sure they are being calculated correctly, appointments are being completed, and veterans can get the care they need in a timely manner.
Some Members of Congress are doing their part to #completetheMISSION by introducing reforms that would build on the success of the VA MISSION Act while strengthening veterans’ ability to access care when and where they need it.
These measures, in addition to more reforms at the VA – including a full audit of VA resources and programs – put veterans at the center of their own health care and would begin to provide the freedom and choices veterans deserve.
But your elected leaders in Washington need to hear from you!
The VA is limiting veterans’ access to medical care.
Wait times at the VA are increasing, and to ensure veterans can receive quality and timely care the VA should expand health care delivery options by increasing access to community care.
The VA should be focused on removing barriers for veterans to receive quality health care, not artificially creating more red tape.
Tell your lawmakers to support Complete the Mission Act and the Veterans Health Care Freedom Act to ensure veterans’ area empowered with their own choice when it comes to their health care.