Hegseth, Collins push for cuts to veterans health benefits, alarming service members and veterans groups

“Call Pete Hegseth!”

It was March 2018, and then-President Donald Trump was meeting with Veterans Affairs Secretary Dr. David Shulkin to discuss how to reform veterans’ health care. But what Trump really wanted was Hegseth, then a Fox News personality.

Hegseth, now Trump’s nominee to serve as defense secretary, has been an outspoken and relentless advocate for veterans to have unrestricted access to private health care, rather than having to go through the Veterans Administration to retain their benefits. He also lobbies for policies that limit Veterans Administration medical services and believes veterans should demand reductions in government benefits.

“We want veterans to have full choice to go get care wherever they want,” Hegseth told Trump on speakerphone as Shulkin listened, according to Shulkin’s 2019 memoir.

Doug Collins, Trump’s pick to be the next VA secretary, has also expressed support for greater privatization of veterans’ health care, which advocates describe as giving veterans more choices than doctors. . If veterans “want to go back and see their own doctor, so be it,” he told Fox News last month.

For Shulkin, it was a rare “continuation” from President Barack Obama’s administration to the Trump administration that it was a “worst case scenario” for veterans’ health care, something he repeatedly warned Hegseth against. This situation.

“Your version of choice would cost billions of dollars a year and bankrupt the system,” Shulkin recalled in his memoir. “How do we pursue this responsibly? Unfortunately, he doesn’t want to get involved with budgets and other aspects of day-to-day reality. He seems to prefer sound bites on TV.

If confirmed, Hegseth and Collins would have the opportunity to push for an overhaul of the military and veterans health care systems that could drastically cut government health benefits for active duty service members and veterans — Hegseth said, Veterans should not claim all of many of these benefits.

Veterans groups “encourage veterans to apply for every government benefit available to them after they leave the service,” he said in a 2019 interview on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.” , I serve my country because I love my country, and I want to go home and start the next chapter of my life. If I have a chronic illness – mental, physical or otherwise – the government would be better off being there for me, but otherwise I don’t want to be dependent on it.

CNN (CNN) has reached out to Hegseth and the Trump transition team for comment.

“Typical swamp feedback loop”

The fight by small-government conservatives to privatize VA health care is nothing new. The VA in particular has long been plagued by bureaucratic challenges that have led to long, sometimes even wait times for veterans. Dangerously delaying medical care.

Hegseth said on “The Sean Ryan Show” podcast last month that he was not explicitly advocating for privatizing the VA but “effectively letting the dollars follow veterans” to their preferred doctors.

Critics, however, say the “unfettered choice” narrative is a Trojan horse for privatizing and ultimately dismantling the VA system altogether, which will have a budget of more than $300 billion by 2024.

Hegseth told Sean Ryan that the VA “hates” conversations about more private options “because their budget could be reduced.”

“It’s a classic swamp feedback cycle,” he said. He added that when he was being considered for VA secretary in 2016, he heard from a large number of veterans supporting his idea.

But Amy McGrath, a retired Marine fighter pilot who challenged Sen. Mitch McConnell for Kentucky’s seat in 2020, stressed in an interview with CNN that while the private sector surrounding health care ization debate has been “going on for years,” but there has not been a “widespread outcry among veterans against the privatization of the Department of Veterans Affairs.”

“I’m not saying the VA is perfect, it’s certainly not,” said McGrath, a Democrat. “But I don’t think there would be such an outcry to privatize it.”

A senior Biden administration official told CNN that there are many career civil servants within the Veterans Administration “who have dedicated their lives to the health and welfare of our nation’s veterans who have served in multiple wars.” The official added , these civil servants are now very concerned about “the continued health care and earned benefits of the veterans they serve.”

As defense secretary, Hegseth will oversee the military health system, which is independent of the Veterans Health Administration. But Hegseth is generally skeptical of government-provided health care and believes health care benefits for active-duty service members and veterans should be slashed so the Pentagon can spend more on “warfighting capabilities,” according to Wall Street reports. Journal op-ed written in 2014.

“If this continues, the Department of Defense will end up becoming a health care and pension provider that also happens to be involved in war,” he wrote.

McGrath also said that while she understood the idea of ​​trying to cut costs, there was no data “to suggest that privatization would lead to significant cost reductions.”

“No matter how you approach it, health care is expensive,” she said. “I’m worried, and I think a lot of people are worried, that you’re going to lose the quality of care because now you’re moving veteran care to the private sector, and the private sector has an incentive to make money…Health insurance makes money in the following ways: Denial of care. Is this what we want?

Limit VA care

As CEO of Concerned America’s Veterans, a veterans group backed by conservative billionaires Charles Koch and David Koch, Heggs lobbied to only support veterans with service-connected disabilities and special needs. Veterans are provided with Department of Veterans Affairs health care.

The policy will significantly limit the number of veterans who will be eligible for VA care in the future. Hegseth’s skepticism about the broad range of government benefits available to veterans sparked outrage among veterans groups.

Max Rose, an Army Reserve officer and Democratic former congressman who is now a senior adviser to the progressive veterans group VoteVets, called Hegseth’s comments “extremely disrespectful” to veterans who are trusted “to fight, protect The motherland, the defense of the country.” Our rights, our way of life – and then we think they’re going to go home and become abusers of health care services? “

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Shulkin said some of Hegseth’s ideas were not surprising and agreed that veterans should have access to some level of personal care, especially as wait times at the Department of Veterans Affairs for appointments are too long. Down. But he also said Hegseth, as an outsider with no experience working in the VA or health care, didn’t understand the “complexities” of the system he was trying to completely reshape.

“At that time, I told him, ‘I was there, I know the reality,'” he told CNN in an interview Wednesday. “I see patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and veterans. I have been a doctor in the private sector my whole life. I know the hospitals I run are not equipped to care for these patients. I don’t just give [veterans] A coupon and say: ‘Good luck.

As Shulkin’s memoir demonstrates, Hegseth and Concerned Veterans of America exerted significant influence over Trump on the issue. Hegers told Ryan that Trump considered appointing Hegers as VA secretary in 2016.

Hegseth had resigned from CVA when Trump took office amid reports of allegations of financial mismanagement, frequent drinking and sexual harassment, all of which Hegseth has denied. Still, Shulkin wrote in his memoir, CVA “appeared regularly at the White House and showed up at meetings when I didn’t invite them.” “White House staff ensured CVA had a strong voice at every turn.”

The progressive government watchdog group America Oversight has also documented the CVA’s influence on Trump on the issue early in his first administration.

“It’s our responsibility”

Kate Kuzminski, director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), said there could be conversations about moving some veterans’ medical services, especially those that are not for physical purposes. services. Directly related to military service – into the community and outside the Veterans Administration. For example, get an annual checkup, or get regular vaccinations.

But, she said, that raises more questions, especially about veterans in disadvantaged communities, such as low-income groups, about how they can continue to receive care if the VA is no longer an option for them.

“Individuals who need access to care are at risk of being delayed in accessing care, or not being able to access care at all… We as a country philosophically say, yes, that’s our responsibility,” Kuzminski said.

When it comes to the military health system, which the defense secretary directly oversees, the Pentagon this year began reassessing its policies of the past decade, which have sought to lower health care costs by cutting staff at military health facilities and outsourcing care to private physicians and hospitals. .

TriCare, which allows soldiers and their families to access private doctors and clinics, has either not been accepted by many private health care providers due to staffing shortages at military installations, or the shift toward privatized care has made it more difficult for service members to access doctors. A Defense Department inspector general report found that access was only allowed to substandard facilities.

“I can understand that advocating for people to have maximum freedom and choice sounds good,” Shulkin said. “There’s no doubt that it’s an important part of health care. But you have to have a system to send them to that knows how to deal with toxic exposure and post-traumatic stress, and our young men and women in simple Injuries sustained when returning from an explosive device blast and requiring this type of complex prosthetic care.

Ross echoed the concern that veterans may not receive the comprehensive care they may need from civilian health care providers. The problems with VA health care — of which there are some “undeniable” examples — are “a justification for building up the system we have, not tearing it down.”

“Being able to walk into a facility and talk to someone who not only understands the experience of combat, but the experience of being in the military — private medical institutions can’t replace that,” Ross said.

Kuzminski agreed that the Veterans Administration has done a good job of handling some issues outside of civilian health care, but he said “a lot of progress” has been made in electronic health records over the past decade that will allow both the military and civilians to Healthcare providers can have a more comprehensive picture of veterans’ healthcare needs.

Shulkin said he would reserve judgment on Hegers’ nomination until he sees Hegers address active-duty military and veteran care issues during his confirmation hearings. But he expressed hope that Hegseth’s views would change.

“I do believe that what any good leader needs to do is be able to recognize when their perspective should change or needs to change and then be able to articulate and express their actual vision for leading the agency,” he said. Yes.

For more CNN news and newsletters, create an account at CNN.com