'This Is Outrageous': Trump VA to Eliminate Up to 35,000 Healthcare Jobs This Month
"It is abundantly clear that Republicans and the Trump administration want to strangle the VA until it all gets privatized," said the advocacy group VoteVets.
Before the end of the year, the Trump administration is planning to eliminate up to 35,000 healthcare jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, a chronically understaffed agency that has already lost tens of thousands of employees to the White House's sweeping assault on the federal workforce.
The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the targeted positions—many of which are unfilled—include doctors, nurses, and support staff. A spokesperson for the VA, led by former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), described the jobs as "mostly Covid-era roles that are no longer necessary."
VA workers, veterans advocates, and a union representing hundreds of thousands of department employees disputed that characterization as the agency faces staff shortages across the country.
"We are all doing the work of others to compensate,” one VA employee told the Post. “The idea that relief isn’t coming is really, really disappointing.”
Thomas Dargon Jr., deputy general counsel of the American Federation of Government Employees, said remaining VA employees "are obviously going to be facing the brunt of any further job cuts or reorganization that results in employees having to do more work with less."
The advocacy organization VoteVets cast the job cuts as another step toward the longstanding GOP goal of privatizing the VA.
"This is outrageous," the group wrote on social media. "It is abundantly clear that Republicans and the Trump administration want to strangle the VA until it all gets privatized."
"We must expand the VA, not hollow it out."
News of the impending job cuts came months after the Trump administration moved to gut collective bargaining protections for many VA employees and as recent staffing cuts continued to hamper veterans' services nationwide.
"Wait times for new mental health appointments have increased sharply since January in my home state, Connecticut," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said during a Senate hearing earlier this month. "For example, the most recent data shows the current wait time for a new patient mental health appointment at the Orange VA Clinic in Connecticut—an outpatient facility specializing in mental health—is 208 days."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said in a statement Sunday that "it is unacceptable that the US Department of Veterans Affairs plans to eliminate as many as 35,000 healthcare positions this month."
"This is especially outrageous given the reality that VA facilities in Vermont and across the country already face severe staffing challenges," said Sanders. "When someone puts their life on the line to defend this country in uniform, we in turn must provide them with the best quality healthcare available. These layoffs are unacceptable and must be reversed. We must expand the VA, not hollow it out. And I will do everything I can to make that happen."