AFGE is mobilizing locals nationwide to fight back against the VA’s efforts to close dozens of health care facilities across the country.
Immediately after the release of the VA’s recommendations, AFGE established the Save My VA website, where members can find resources to take action against the closures.
Since then, AFGE locals in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Philadelphia have held rallies outside VA medical centers, where union leaders, politicians, and veterans spoke about the detrimental impact privatization of VA health care would have on our nation’s heroes.
“It is well-documented that veterans prefer to receive their care at the VA, which provides better and more specialized care, at a lower cost,” said AFGE Veterans Committee Chair and District 12 National Vice President Mario Campos. “If the VA’s recommendations are accepted, veterans will be forced to rely on costly, private, for-profit care from providers who are not trained to understand their unique needs.”
The veteran population has more complex health requirements based on the injuries and conditions they have experienced during their service – including the wounds of war, traumatic injuries, post-traumatic stress, and toxic exposure.
A recent study among hundreds of thousands of older veterans found that those who were treated at VA emergency departments had 46% lower mortality than those who were seen outside the VA at private hospitals – and costs were 21% lower as well.
“Closing VA health care facilities would be a slap in the face to America’s veterans and those who care for them,” said NVP Campos, who is himself a veteran. “Instead of finding new ways to line the pockets of those looking to make a fortune off veteran health care, the VA should be reinvesting in its facilities, filling tens of thousands of vacancies, and expanding services it provides.”
Using bad data to push for VA privatization
The Asset and Infrastructure Review (AIR) Commission was created along with a massive, new permanent contract care program as part of the VA MISSION Act in 2018. This law was designed to privatize large swaths of VA, and the AIR Commission provisions are no exception.
VA leadership on March 14 submitted to the commission a series of devastating recommendations - under the guise of “modernizing the VA” - that could shutter large segments of the VA health care system.
Working with private sector health care consultants, VA administrators used out-of-date, unreliable pre-pandemic information and assumptions about the availability of private sector alternatives in deciding what facilities to close or downsize. In February 2022, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) torched the data underlying VA’s recommendations.
No AIR Commissioners should be confirmed
AFGE is urging senators not to confirm any of President Biden’s nominations to the AIR Commission. The prospective members – some of whom have been criticized for their ties to privatization interests – must be confirmed prior to reviewing the VA’s recommendations. Currently, no date has been set for either a Senate committee hearing or a vote on final confirmation.
If the Senate does not confirm the nominees by January 2023, the commission’s authority dies along with its ability to fast-track facility closures.
If the Senate overlooks the fatal flaws in the process to date and confirms the commission, the commission will begin holding hearings and reviewing the VA recommendation over a period of just a few months, using a small budget and a staff largely drawn from the ranks of VA managers.
The commission, if it forms, would report the VA’s closure recommendations, along with any changes, to the president by January 31, 2023. At that point the recommendations would be subject to approval by the president and an expedited up-or-down vote in both houses of Congress.
If Congress and the president fail to disapprove the AIR Commission’s report, the VA Secretary would be required to begin the closures within three years. Any new construction, modernization, or new facilities would be dependent on future appropriations from Congress.
VA employees and the veterans we serve deserve a fair process for modernizing VA health care, with adequate funding, not a closure commission. The best way to serve our nation’s veterans is to reject any proposal to close or cut services at VA medical centers and clinics or eliminate inpatient beds.
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