Veterans deserve a “square deal” once they finish their service.
This is not a new concept. Teddy Roosevelt used those exact words more than a hundred years ago, and it still is the central idea about how veterans’ health care should work.
Unfortunately, veterans face a health care system that often works against instead of for them.
In a recent op-ed, Darin Selnick, a US Air Force veteran and a senior advisor for CVA, explains how the VA MISSION Act was meant to help veterans access community care.
The law included measures for timely access to care at the VA or out in the community, plans to modernize outdated, crumbling VA facilities, and expansion of caregiver support to include all eras of veterans.
In short, the MISSION Act was a gamechanger that would put veterans in the driver’s seat of their care.
However, the Biden administration has silently killed the law and restored the status quo where the interests of the VA come before those of veterans.
As Selnick explains:
VA has even created referral coordination teams, that meet without veterans’ knowledge, to review and deny veterans community care after they are already deemed eligible. These teams decide if the VA considers it “appropriate” for veterans to use community care based on internal, illegal standards.
This is clearly not what the MISSION Act was intended for. Congress must step in to ensure the VA puts veterans first, not itself.
Read the rest of Selnick’s op-ed for solutions to fixing veterans health care.