It’s official: the VA plans to reduce its nationwide staff of 484,000 by nearly 30,000 employees in fiscal year 2025. It’s a step back from the 76,000 they were projected to cut earlier this year.
But while the agency says this “reduction-in-force” won’t disrupt care and benefits for veterans, many outside the agency aren’t convinced.
David Lucier is one of those skeptics. He served in the U.S. Army Special Forces and established a nonprofit called the Arizona Veterans and Military Leadership Alliance.
He told The Show he fears this is another step toward a larger goal of privatizing the VA and comes at the worst time — especially for the Phoenix facility.
Full conversation
DAVID LUCIER: The VA has historically been understaffed, and so now we’re going to cut staff and expect things to get better? I think not.
LAUREN GILGER: So let’s talk about the understaffing and some of the chronic problems that have existed. You have been speaking out about the progress that the Phoenix VA has made, in your opinion, in the last decade since it was in the midst of a big scandal 10-12 years ago. How far has the Phoenix VA come?
LUCIER: Well, the Phoenix VA has gone from rock bottom to top of the heap. They are one of the leading medical centers in the system, but they also stand up very, very well and exceed actually a lot of the medical centers or medical resources here in the Valley. And so this is exactly the opposite of what the VA Medical needs at this time.
GILGER: When you talk about understaffing and how the VA is currently understaffed, what does that look like? What are the impacts on care? You go to the VA, right? You receive care there?
LUCIER: Yes, yes I do. Well, it just makes absolute sense. It means probably longer wait times; canceled appointments, especially as we lose doctors, nurses and frontline staff; fewer crisis responders and mental health resources, including reduced capacity at the veterans crisis line; closure of detox and inpatient mental health beds.
GILGER: So you’re concerned about these cuts impacting so many areas of care, it sounds like.
LUCIER: Absolutely. And again, I’m a user. I’ve been there for 10 or 12 years, and I know what bad models look like. And this is a formula for disaster.
GILGER: So let me ask you about what you’re hearing from other veterans, from staff at the VA here in Phoenix as well. Are people equally concerned?
LUCIER: Ever since I got involved with the VA, one of the things I always ask when I go there is, “How is it going? How are you feeling? How long have you been with the VA? What changes have you seen?”
And right now, a lot of the staff that I’ve talked to over the past couple of months, they’re unsteady. They’re shaken over what they see is coming down the pike. And so they’re worried. They’re concerned. They’re concerned about not only the care that they’re able to give, but whether they’re going to even have jobs in the next few weeks. So that’s a huge distraction from giving patients the best care they can.
And as far as the veterans community is concerned, I’m hearing the exact same thing that I’m relaying to you. And that is a lot of concern. We’ve been to the place, that dark place where we’ve got under resources, bad management and the like, and the impact on veterans care is hugely negative.
And right now, we’ve come to a place where we get great care at the VA, but we’ve also been to a place historically, and we’ve experienced the dark side of care, if you will, given by the VA. And we don’t want to go back to that place. We want to continue forward because we’ve been there and done that, and now we’re seeing these clouds on the horizon, and it’s not a pretty sight.
GILGER: So walk me through the implications as you began to before. If a veteran like you can’t get an appointment for something that they need to get an appointment for relatively soon, what happens? You’ve got to go elsewhere to find that care?
LUCIER: In some cases there’s an alternative to go into what they call community care. And I’ve on occasion used that element. And that system works really, really well on a limited basis.
But here’s my fear: My fear is that the base rationale to reduce and cut the VA budget has been a yearslong effort by Republicans to push the VA towards privatization. And they do that by weakening the VA from within, as in understaffing and forcing people into the community care. And I might add, it’s a substantially higher price, higher cost to the system.
So now on occasion, for instance, I know that during the winter months, appointments at our Phoenix V.A. increases about 20%. Reason being is we get a lot of winter visitors who come here, and a lot of them are veterans. And they seek care. And so in those kind of cases maybe going to the community care might be a good answer. But, it’s not the answer. It should be a small element within the total solution.
GILGER: So you’re concerned about efforts to privatize the VA. The current VA secretary, Doug Collins, said at his confirmation hearing that he’s against privatization. He didn’t push for that. Are you still concerned that that’s the direction this administration is taking the VA in?
LUCIER: Absolutely. They know the reaction to privatization. They’ve been there and done that. In fact, Doug Collins was part of that movement back in the day. And I say “back in the day,” when the Phoenix VA was going through its turmoil. And their answer was to privatize the VA. And I’ve seen that the words may change, but the behaviors are exactly the same.
It’s not just me. I talk with our elected officials, Sen. Mark Kelly continues to warn that these cuts will mean longer wait times for veterans in crisis, fewer health care providers, delays in veterans’ access to benefits they’ve earned.
A lot of veterans work at the VA. They know they’re serving veterans. If I walk into a place, nobody ever asks me if I’ve ever been treated for PTSD, if I’ve ever been treated for lymphoma, do you have any metals in your body from bullets or shrapnel? None of those questions. But you go to the VA, and it’s assumed that you have experienced trauma and various medical conditions based on your service.
GILGER: It’s care coming from a different and maybe more informed perspective, it sounds like.
LUCIER: Absolutely.
The Show reached out to the Phoenix VA for comment on this story and did not receive a response by our deadline.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The VA is reducing staff by nearly 30,000 by the end of fiscal year 2025 through attrition, retirements, resignations and the federal hiring freeze. A previous version of this story said the VA was conducting layoffs.
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