Vet vs. Vet Debate: Will Walz or Vance Address the VA Privatization Issue?

Amid the rhetorical haze of their landmark presidential debate in June, Donald Trump and his then-opponent addressed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) only in passing.

Former President Trump claimed that “Crazy Joe Biden” stopped allowing military veterans to choose between VA care and private sector alternatives after he left the White House. When he was in the White House, Trump claimed VA patients could “get healed” in private hospitals and doctor’s offices instead of waiting “three months to see a doctor.” The results of this outsourcing were “incredible” and earned his administration “the highest approval rating in VA history.”

In response, President Biden understandably failed to address two points, either due to cognitive decline or cognitive dissonance. First, out-of-control spending on private care has left the VA-run Veterans Health Administration (VHA) projected to face a $12 billion budget deficit for fiscal year 2025—which is not good news for veterans. And second, a Democrat in the White House hasn’t given up on privatization because there was more of it under him than under Trump.

Biden instead pivoted and talked about the 2022 PACT Act, which helped nearly a million post-9/11 vets file more successful disability claims based on their previous exposure to burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the next decade, the PACT Act will provide hundreds of billions of dollars to effectively deliver their medical care and financial benefits—but it all depends on a well-functioning VA.

This brief and uninformative exchange failed to address the real challenges facing the federal government’s third-largest agency. The VHA operates the nation’s largest public health system, providing high-quality, direct care (not insurance coverage) to former military members who have low income or service-related medical conditions. But as the June presidential debate continued into September — with so many other things to talk about — veterans’ affairs became a topic not discussed by either Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris.

Vance vs. Walz

The next opportunity for a more substantive exchange about the past, present and future of VA care will be Tuesday evening, October 1st. During their first and likely only vice presidential debate, two former military NCOs will have the opportunity to accept or reject the costly and disastrous bipartisan experiment in VA outsourcing that began under Obama, continued under Trump and expanded under Biden.

Not surprisingly, Gov. Tim Walz is more likely to do so. Because during the election campaign, Senator JD Vance – a co-beneficiary of VA education benefits – denigrated the VA in Trump-style and talked about privatization.

In a recent podcast interview with Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL turned influencer, Vance claimed the agency was so slow and callous that “veterans spend three hours on the phone trying to get an appointment” and even ” “There are people who commit suicide because they have to wait 28 days for a doctor’s appointment.” The solution, Vance says, is “to give people more choice.” I think you’ll save money in the process.”

After winning the first of six House races, Walz joined the House Veterans Affairs Committee (HVAC) before becoming governor of Minnesota – a low-profile committee assignment rejected by many aspiring politicians. In 2018, he joined just 69 other House Democrats in opposing the VA MISSION Act, one of Donald Trump’s proudest legislative achievements and the basis for his 2024 campaign promise to make VA “patient choice” more widely available.

Walz aptly warned that outsourcing under the MISSION Act would force the VA to “cannibalize itself” by diverting billions of dollars from direct service delivery to reimbursing private providers. This gradual reduction in funding for VHA hospitals and clinics now threatens to plunge them into what Walz called a “non-functional situation.”

In Congress, Walz also advocated for his fellow veterans with service-related ailments. His own hearing damage resulted from repeated exposure to artillery fire during 24 years of National Guard training exercises. He was applauded for co-sponsoring a bill that focused on suicide prevention services; The name comes from a Marine veteran who committed suicide in 2011 after long struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

An ally of the Union (sometimes)

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents VA workers in his home state, fondly remembers Walz’s role as the ranking Democrat in what was then a Republican-run HVAC plant. During his first run for Congress, the then-high school teacher and coach reached out to local AFGE President Jane Nygard, who discovered that “he’s not someone who just says something to make you happy, but that he actually takes action.”

According to Nygard, “When We had problems with the St. Paul VA, which had poor management and few staff. Congressman Walz, a fellow union member, listened to our union. He called in the Federal Mediation and Arbitration Service and we ended up having a three-day retreat with upper management. Eventually, senior management retired and labor relations improved.”

The only bad mark on Walz’s union record is his vote for the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Act of 2017. This Trump-era attempt to strip VA workers of their due process rights in disciplinary cases was challenged in court by AFGE. To his credit, Biden’s VA Secretary Denis McDonough last year ended a five-year legal battle over implementation of the law by reaching an agreement with the union. According to the Federal News Network, thousands of unfairly fired workers were granted reinstatement or back pay, with the total cost estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars.

Other workers or managers fired for “serious misconduct” were not covered by this agreement. Still, Trump has promised to “fire every corrupt VA bureaucrat that Joe Biden brazenly refused to remove from office.” A Vance campaign spokesman recently hailed the MISSION Act as “bipartisan legislation that expands veterans’ access to quality care and cuts unnecessary bureaucracy.” Tim Walz’s opposition to this is “not the kind of leadership that veterans in Washington need,” the spokesman said.

Differences between party platforms

To do anything different or better at the VA than Biden — or Trump before him — Walz and Harris must first win in November. They can both increase veteran voter turnout, especially in battleground states, by focusing on the narrowness of the Republicans’ plan to “take care of our veterans” – all 47 words of it!

This lone paragraph, buried in the Republican platform adopted in Milwaukee, begins by bashing immigrants. The party promises to eliminate “luxury housing and tax breaks” for border workers and “use those savings to house and treat homeless veterans.” Additionally, a second Trump administration will “expand healthcare options for veterans, protect whistleblowers, and hold accountable underperforming employees who fail to provide our veterans the care they deserve.”

The corresponding statement in the Democratic Party’s election platform is far more substantive. It includes veteran homelessness and suicide, implementing the PACT Act, improving mental health programs, new services for women veterans, supporting family members who care for VA patients, and combating scams targeting veterans those who file disability claims because of their toxic exposure.

“Going forward,” Democrats declare, “we will strengthen VA care by fully funding inpatient, outpatient and long-term care and modernizing the infrastructure of medical facilities.” Unfortunately, this otherwise laudable campaign promise does not take into account the reality of the VA. Outsourcing under Biden, which has diverted additional funding from VA direct care and infrastructure modernization over the past four years.

Binding Trump-Vance to Project 2025

At least some VA defenders in the Democratic Party are linking Trump and Vance to Project 2025’s VA-related recommendations. As Iraq War veteran and U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) points out, this is the Heritage Foundation’s playbook for the GOP: “Absolutely target veterans’ health and disability benefits.”

In August, Deluzio warned Military.com readers that his Republican HVAC colleagues often “sidered with corporate interests to outsource care for VA patients.” And now her presidential transition planners at the corporate-backed Heritage Foundation want to refer even more vets to “costly private facilities, a fiscally reckless move that … has driven up costs for the VA.”

According to Deluzio, the “ultimate end goal of these plans is to destroy the VA’s own clinical care mission – which should send shivers down the spines of America’s veterans and those who want the best care for them.”

During the election campaign, Trump and Vance diverted attention from this “endgame” by repeatedly positioning themselves as defenders of “patience voting.” At a mid-August event at a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in western Pennsylvania, Vance noted the very real problems accessing health care for “our veterans who live in rural areas.” He assured his invitation-only crowd that “those who wear a uniform and serve our country… need to see a doctor, they need to be given the opportunity to see a doctor.”

At a National Guard Association convention in Detroit in late August, where he received a warm welcome, Trump again accused the Biden-Harris administration of undoing his many “VA reforms” related to “choice” and “accountability.” . He praised VA outsourcing as a great system of “quick service” where patients “go to an outside doctor… get repaired themselves and we pay the bill.”

By November 5th, veterans need much more factual information about VA privatization to counter the constant drumbeat of “fake news” they receive from Trump, Vance and the Republican Party. Let’s hope now-retired National Guard Sergeant Waltz takes charge and gives the former Ohio Marine corporal turned Yale-educated lawyer turned multimillionaire venture capitalist with little personal need for the VA services he holds so dear. deals a successful blow to working-class veterans in his own state and others.

This article appeared in a different form in the October issue of American Prospect. For subscription information, see: