Broken Promises: Veterans’ Health Care and Other Services Threatened

This week's IGGR's Deep Dive

Veterans in the Greater Grand Rapids area and state-wide face multiple benefits cuts and changes to federal, state and local level services. Over 516,000 veterans live in Michigan, with an estimated 41,760 in the Greater Grand Rapids area.

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Access to medical care and quality of care for all veterans, and other support services for those veterans struggling to make ends meet are all negatively affected by the Trump Administration’s overall effort to slash and starve the government through budget cuts, while undoing obligations and regulations and providing huge tax breaks for the wealthiest in the country – very few of whom have served in the military.

The Michigan state budget for fiscal year 2025–2026, while improved from an earlier version cutting even more services to veterans, has affected veterans across the state, including in Kent and Ottawa counties. One of the biggest barriers to veterans for accessing care is lack of information about and frustration with navigating through the paperwork required. The County Veteran Service Fund (CVSF) grants were used for outreach and access to care assistance to veterans. These grants in the current budget restrict those grant resources to be directed toward staff salaries and office expenses rather than funding advertising or outreach activities. State budget cuts have cancelled the Michigan Women Veterans Conference scheduled last month and removed a one-time grant of $2.5 million designated for eliminating veteran homelessness. A state-level grant recalculation led to a nearly 50% cut in funding for the Ottawa County Veteran Services Department. Because it has a large veteran population, Ottawa County absorbed a significant portion of the statewide reduction.

Kent County has a dedicated veterans millage, passed in 2022 and continuing through 2029, providing resources for veterans and their families. However, the federal and state cuts have curbed multiple veterans’ services dependent on those funding sources.

On this Veterans Day, November 11^th, it is an urgent time to focus on what is happening to veterans’ care, particularly during draconian cutting of the federal government, programs and services, an ongoing shutdown, and threats of even more cuts by the Trump Administration and a complicit Republican party. Care for those who serve this country in the military is as old as the Continental Congress of 1776. Recruitment during the American Revolutionary War included providing pensions for soldiers disabled during their service. Direct medical and hospital care given to veterans was provided by the individual states and communities until the first dedicated veterans home and medical facility was opened in 1834.

President Abraham Lincoln spoke directly to the nation’s commitment to all veterans in his second inaugural address:

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

The middle section of that quote would later form the guiding principle for the Veterans Administration, established in 1930, elevated to a cabinet position and renamed the U.S, Department of Veterans Affairs in 1989.

The mission, “to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for {them} who shall have borne the battle,” has been under assault for at least a decade from those who would break this promise for many reasons, leading among them, to privatize care and capture the resources meant to take care of those who have served their country in uniform.

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The efforts to undo the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and privatize care for veterans has been a steady assault by the Trump I and II Administrations. Chief advocates for restricting care to only those with disabilities and specialized needs, include Pete Hegseth, the current Secretary of Defense, and Doug Collins, current Secretary of the VA. They both belong to Concerned Veterans for America, a lobbying group backed by small government, right wing billionaires Charles and David Koch Both current Administration Officials have advocated for veterans to have the “choice” to seek private care. Critics, though, say the “unfettered choice” narrative is a trojan horse for privatizing and ultimately dismantling the VA system altogether, whose budget was over $300 billion in 2024. These “choice” slogans are commonly used by small-government organizations and advocates to undermine government-provided care and other services, such as with the ongoing efforts to dismantle Obama Care and the public education system along with the Department of Education.

Lawrence Deyton, MSPH, MD, Murdoch Head Professor of Medicine and Health Policy at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, a former VA official, and a long-term care provider for veterans stated, “Recent budget and HR changes by the Trump Administration are following on two long-term goals for the VA health care system long-pushed by small-government policy advocates: 1) the continued push to shift health care for veterans away from the federal VA health care system and into mainstream care, and 2) the continued push for the VA health care system to buy and use a private sector electronic health records system. Both of these goals move a huge amount of money to the private sector and, in my opinion, will result in significant erosion of the quality and appropriateness of care to our nation’s veterans. Attempts have been made to do both in the last decade or so and, with both, already have led to failures.”

Kate Kuzminski, the director of the military, veterans, and society program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), in an interview with CNN in December of 2024, said moving some veteran health services – particularly those services that are not for things directly linked to military service – into communities and outside of the VA is worth exploring, but it brings up more questions, particularly about how veterans in vulnerable communities, like those with low income, could continue accessing care if the VA is no longer an option for them. “There is a potential for individuals who need access to care, either being delayed in accessing that or not being able to access it at all … and we as a nation have philosophically said, yeah, that is our responsibility,” Kuzminski said.

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This dynamic occurs locally. Sean McLaughlin, a former Marine and user of the VA healthcare system, said that the Community Care Network (CCN), which connects veterans to private healthcare providers for care outside of the VA facilities, is very slow or completely unable to provide matches between veterans and those providers because the providers are paid a lower amount for veterans than for patients on Medicaid, Medicare, or private insurance. “Most veterans don’t understand that CCN for everything is going to be very bad.” Even though the idea of getting private care may be appealing, the reality is, accessing it will be much harder or more expensive for veterans.

Dr. Deyton further explained the unique value of care for veterans, stating, “Veterans who use the VA health care system vastly favor it for a host of reasons, including: 1) the unique expertise in and proactive screening for military and war-related injuries and exposures; and, 2) camaraderie – being with and around other veterans who have had similar and unique experiences which many loathe to share with anyone except other veterans. The opportunity to be with other veterans is a hugely under appreciated advantage over non-VA health facilities and care providers.”

At the federal level, substantial workforce reductions across the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have included cutting 30,000 positions by the end of fiscal year 2025, completed October 1st. These cuts represent net losses of medical support assistants, physicians, and registered nurses across the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the part of the VA charged with providing direct medical care to veterans. As the VHA workforce that remains, already spread thin, takes up more work due to these staff shortages, the impact on veterans includes longer waiting times for medical care, and possible reduction in the quality of care with positions left vacant by retiring senior staff.

In the first round of federal employee cuts, of the 2,400 nationwide targeted at the VA, 68 staff were based at medical centers in Detroit and Ann Arbor, swept up by their “temporary” status as the only rationale to target them. While the lawsuits now before the Supreme Court brought by worker unions challenging the firings as illegal and ignorant of due process, staffing shortages prevail, pushing out wait times, cancelling appointments, and delaying care of veterans. Previous decisions by this Supreme Court, granting outsized authority to the Executive Branch of government, do not bode well for this case.

What you can do:

Thank a veteran for their service on Veterans Day, and voice support for a continued commitment of the country to provide medical care and other services to those who served.

Call Senator Peters (202.224.6221, https://www.peters.senate.gov/contact/email-gary):

• Thank him for his service, and for leading the charge to pass the PACT Act of 2022, recognizing and providing services for treating exposure to toxic chemicals during service, such as in Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and to keep fighting for health care for veterans, oppose the Trump Administration’s cuts to the VA and efforts to privatize care.

Call Senator Slotkin (202.224.4822, https://www.slotkin.senate.gov/contact/contact-senator-slotkin/):

• Thank her for serving on Senate Committees for Veterans’ Affairs and Armed Services.

• Ask her to continue fighting for veterans by opposing staffing and budget cuts to the VA.

Call Hillary Scholten:

• Ask her to continue opposing cuts to comprehensive care services, such as for abortion care, infertility treatments, and contraception; the budget cuts to veterans health care, including through the PACT Act; and to continue supporting services addressing homelessness.

Local veteran services remain available to provide assistance:

• Kent County Veterans Services: 836 Fuller Avenue NE, Grand Rapids

• Wyoming VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic: 5838 Metro Way, Wyoming

• Vet Center: 2050 Breton Road SE, Grand Rapids

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