Veterans’ trust in the work of Department of Veterans Affairs employees has reached an all-time high at 80.4%!
According to a new survey conducted by the VA between Jan. 1-March 31, 2024, 80.4% of veterans said they trusted the VA to fulfil the country’s commitment to veterans, an increase from 79.3% in the last quarter of FY2023 and a big jump from 72.3% in the last quarter of FY2019.
Better yet, 91.8% of veterans said they trust VA health care.
The survey results are in line with what AFGE has been saying all along – that VA hospitals are superior to for-profit, private providers who are not specialized in the special needs of veterans and are not equipped to treat them.
“Overall, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) as demonstrated by data in the Strategic Analytics for Improvement and Learning (SAIL) reports, especially in areas that veterans are service connected for, such as mental health and metabolic diseases, VHA usually does better as a whole compared to the private sector,” said MJ Burke, first executive vice president of the AFGE National VA Council. “When I also hear about customer service data that veterans also trust us, regardless of administration, it gives me hope that they also know VHA brings value to them personally.”
AFGE has strongly opposed the privatization of VA services our veterans rely on for their life-sustaining care. In addition to the fact that one in three VA employees are veterans themselves, study after study has shown that the VA is simply superior that their private, for-profit counterparts.
Veterans who are rushed to a non-VA facility, for example, are more likely to die than those taken to a VA hospital. Most private hospitals are not equipped to treat veterans with their unique needs. Fraudulent billings filed by for-profit providers are rampant, and taxpayers are footing the bills for services never performed. What’s more? A former VA secretary denounced the push to privatize VA services as “a political issue aimed at rewarding select people and companies with profits, even if it undermines care for veterans.”
AFGE in 2022 successfully derailed attempts to close VA facilities and send veterans to for-profit providers under the Mission Act. A bipartisan group of 12 senators blocked the confirmation of the nine-member Asset and Infrastructure Review (AIR) Commission that would have considered closing or eliminating services at hundreds of VA facilities nationwide.
AFGE also successfully got lawmakers to defund the commission that would have destroyed tens of thousands of union jobs in communities across the country, denied veterans their preferred choice in health care providers, and forced our nation’s heroes to find their own care from a patchwork of for-profit providers.
But the VA is still heavily relying on private providers, partially because of pressure and legislation championed by pro-privatization lawmakers. According to a report issued earlier this year by the VA’s own independent expert Red Team, more than 40% of our nation’s heroes are currently being sent outside the VA’s proven network of hospitals and clinics to seek their care, at an annual cost to taxpayers of nearly $30 billion, with no guarantee that this care meets VA standards for safety and quality – or even that the private care is any closer or faster than what VA offers.
AFGE is pursuing modifications to the Mission Act that would ensure that quality and access standards that apply to VA apply equally to private providers.
The Office of Personnel Management last week took a huge step toward aligning the locality pay maps for employees on the Federal Wage System and General Schedule.
Read More
With the election approaching Marcial Gomez talks about what’s on the line for TSA employees and his concerns about Project 2025.
Read More
Members of AFGE’s DEFCON Steering Group met along with AFGE staff and elected leaders to discuss ways to better serve employees throughout the DoD in the year ahead.
Read More
