The ‘Hands Off Our Veterans’ Healthcare’ Fight Continues In 2025

In the January/February 2025 Home Front article, we informed APWU veterans about the very serious consequences that Project 2025 will have on Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits, the quality healthcare services veterans receive, and the use of private contractors to process and evaluate their disability claims. We called it a “Code Red Alert” because Project 2025 plans to totally privatize our VA healthcare during President Trump’s second four-year term of office.

Project 2025 does not just affect VA healthcare benefits, it also affects five and 10-point Veterans’ Preference to regular federal government agency employment. So, while we are fighting to save our healthcare, we are also fighting to save our Veterans’ Preference jobs with the Postal Service, which are also threatened to be privatized under President Trump’s Project 2025 plans.

The plan to privatize VA healthcare has been a gradual, ongoing process ever since for-pro t private contractors started replacing VA Federal Government Management and highly trained VA employees more than 22 years ago. In fact, the private contracting of VA healthcare services has increased to such an extreme over the years, that currently over 70 percent of the more than $300 billion of the annual 2022, 2023, and 2024 VA healthcare budget went to private contractors, while only 27 percent went to regular VA federal government employee wages and VA healthcare.

Project 2025 tries to rationalize the privatization of VA healthcare. The most insulting excuse is that sending veterans to local private healthcare contractors would provide faster, top-quality healthcare services, and would reduce waiting times for medical appointments and claim decisions, more so than with fully staffed federal government medical professionals who are trained to serve and provide top-quality healthcare serves to veterans.

There is absolutely no proof that privatizing VA healthcare and increasing the wealth of those awarded private VA contracts would provide better or faster healthcare services than a fully staffed and trained federal agency that specializes in serving veterans. Has the increased privatization of VA healthcare services over the past 23 years reduced wait times for VA appointments? The answer is no! Wait times for a newly enrolled veteran’s first medical appointments are months long, which is a dramatic increase in waiting times for VA services.

A Look at VA Services Diminished by Privatization

While veteran suicide rates have increased, the process to access help from the privatized Veterans Suicide and Crisis Lifeline has gotten more challenging. When dialing 988 to access support, the automated process prompts veterans to dial 911 if it is an emergency, instead of connecting them directly to a real-life mentalhealth professional. This additional step a veteran must take adds another hurdle to access the care they need. Veterans Community Care and Emergency Medical Care services have separate billing systems controlled by private contractors, which seem to change like the weather. Additionally, for-profit private contractors oversee electronic VA enrollment and disability claims processing procedures.

So, APWU family, it is time to act against further privatization and degradation of VA services! Contact your congressional leaders and tell them to stop allowing private for-profit companies to enrich themselves at the expense of our veterans and the services they have earned. How are private contractors providing so-called quality healthcare while enriching themselves from the billions of dollars of veterans’ co-payments and the wage garnishments that cause financial hardship? Isn’t it obvious that privatization like Project 2025 demands has already been implemented at VA medical centers across the country? It is up to our APWU veteran family to stand up and fight back!

Our “Hands Off Veterans Healthcare” initiative and the struggle to save the Postal Service continues! ■