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doug collins
Trump Is Breaking the Promise Our Nation Made to Military Veterans
How the administration is dismantling and privatizing the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Aug 24, 2025
US President Donald Trump is famous for calling our military veterans “suckers” and “losers,” so you won’t be surprised that the president is now breaking the nation’s promise to veterans and active service members by dismantling and privatizing the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the VA.
In 1865, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln called for the nation “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan." Today the motto of the VA reads, “To fulfill President Lincoln’s promise to care for those who have served in our nation’s military and for their families, caregivers, and survivors.”
The VA provides over 18 million veterans and their dependents and caregivers with a multitude of services—healthcare, a Veterans Crisis Line for urgent assistance, disability payments and rehab, education assistance, career counseling, support for veteran-owned businesses, home loans, life insurance and financial services, help for caregivers to the disabled, burial in national cemeteries, and more.
And, of course, the nation has promised those same VA benefits to the 2 million men and women currently serving in the armed forces (1.3 million on active duty and another 761,000 in the reserves) after they retire from service.
Dismantling the VA through privatization, staff cuts, and contract cancellations means future veterans will face a fragmented, profit-driven system that doesn’t understand military service and doesn’t know what veterans have been through.
The plan to privatize the VA was hatched during the first Trump administration. By 2024 a real plan was ready. Project 2025—the MAGA [“Make America Great Again”] blueprint for the authoritarian takeover of the United States—strongly favored private healthcare for veterans.
The VA’s own healthcare system includes 170 hospitals and nearly 1,200 clinics spread across the country. It is the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system. Since 2014, the VA has also had a private side, now known as “community care.” If a veteran lives too far from a VA healthcare facility or needs a service the VA can’t provide, they may be eligible for “community care” from a private local doctor or clinic, paid for by the VA.
The Trump administration is expanding privatized “community care.” The “VA Mission Act of 2018,” enacted during the first Trump administration, nearly doubled the VA’s budget for private “community care” from $15 billion in 2018 to $28.3 billion in 2023.
Trump’s 2025 VA budget proposal increases total VA spending, but 75% of the increase (or $14.4 billion) doesn’t go to the VA at all—it goes to private medical providers. This represents a 67% increase for privatized care.
Many see the growing private healthcare budget as a stealth way to eventually privatize the VA’s entire system. Every dollar devoted to private care is a dollar denied to the VA’s own doctors and nurses, ultimately undermining the entire VA system. Doctors and nurses see the handwriting on the wall and leave. Their likely replacements see an agency under siege and stay away.
So far in 2025, the VA lost 600 doctors and 1,900 nurses. During the first three months of the year, about 40% of doctors who were offered jobs declined—four times the rejection rate a year earlier.
In March 2025, a leaked memo revealed Trump’s plan to eliminate 83,000 jobs from the VA, as much as 15% of the agency’s workforce. In response, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called the plan “a gut punch… breathtaking… in its malevolence and cruelty.” After major pushback from veterans, the agency announced it would only need to cut 30,000 jobs because so many staff had agreed to leave voluntarily.
To make it easier to cut VA staff, on August 6 VA Secretary Doug Collins ended collective bargaining agreements for most of the VA’s 377,000 unionized employees, including nurses, doctors, benefits processors, food service workers, technicians, and janitorial staff. The VA is the first major federal agency to fully strip collective bargaining rights from its unionized workforce.
Since 1865, veterans have been given preference for government jobs, though they must prove they are qualified to do the work. More than one-quarter of the VA’s 482,000 employees are veterans. (Project 2025’s plan to eliminate half of all government employees by 2026 and 75% by 2029 would cut jobs for about 300,000 veterans.)
In August 2025, the VA’s inspector general reported 4,434 health staffing shortages—a 50% increase from the previous year. In all, 94% of 139 VA health facilities reported severe shortages of medical officers and 79% reported shortages of nurses. As private-care funding is increasing, the VA itself is fraying.
In recent years, a mental health crisis among veterans has been growing worse and the Trump administration has responded by slashing the services designed to save lives. On average, 17 veterans commit suicide every day. Since 2007, the Veterans Crisis Line has handled more than 1.6 million calls and dispatched 351,000 emergency responders (about 100 per day) to help veterans in crisis, yet Trump and VA Secretary Collins have targeted suicide prevention programs for cuts. Furthermore, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2025 revealed that veterans receiving private “community care” are not satisfied with the quality of care they receive outside the VA and they have a 21% higher suicide rate.
Now the ”One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that Congress enacted July 4 is expected to eliminate Medicaid health insurance for some veterans. Medicaid currently provides care for 1.6 million veterans, including those with the most complex medical needs.
In addition, when veterans transition out of the military it often takes six months or longer to find steady work. During that time, they may rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly “food stamps”) to feed their families. The One Big Beautiful Bill denies SNAP benefits to able-bodied people who don’t have jobs, specifically including veterans. Trump says he “loves our veterans” and will take care of them—but the Big Beautiful Bill is how he thanks them for their service.
It gets worse. In 2022, Congress enacted the PACT Act to deliver healthcare to millions of veterans who were exposed to toxic chemicals during their years of service. Now Trump is undermining that law.
During the Vietnam War (1962-1971), about 3 million veterans were exposed to Agent Orange, a potent cancer-causing herbicide sprayed over vast areas to kill jungle vegetation. An estimated 300,000 Vietnam veterans have already died from exposure to Agent Orange (about five times as many as the 58,000 killed in combat).
Another major source of toxic exposures to veterans has been smoke and fumes from “burn pits.” Burn pits are big holes in the ground where, for decades, roughly 300 military installations (large and small, worldwide) have burned plastics, electronics, chemicals, munitions, medical waste, and human waste. Somewhere between 3.5 and 5 million veterans have been exposed to toxic fumes from burn pits. (Use of burn pits finally ended in 2021.)
In 2022, Congress enacted the PACT Act [“The Sergeant First Class (SFC) Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act”] to assess and care for veterans exposed to toxicants. The PACT Act created one of the largest expansions of VA benefits ever enacted. Until the Trump administration hit the brakes.
Many of the features of the PACT Act required specialized services provided under contract with private-sector suppliers, but the Trump administration in early 2025 canceled at least 650 of those contracts. Trump cancelled contracts that provided the necessary personnel and resources to conduct outreach to eligible veterans, screen applicants, and process claims—cutting the heart out of the PACT Act. Evidently not everyone in the Trump administration is proud of their efforts to undermine the PACT Act. US Senate investigators have accused VA Secretary Collins, of trying “to hide the truth from Congress” about staff cuts and contract cancellations related to PACT.
Dismantling the VA through privatization, staff cuts, and contract cancellations means future veterans will face a fragmented, profit-driven system that doesn’t understand military service and doesn’t know what veterans have been through. In truth, every cut, every step toward privatization, every canceled contract is a betrayal of the promise we have made to all those who serve: When you return, we will take care of you.
This piece has been updated with the information that the Trump VA ended collective bargaining for most of its unionized staff.
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'Blatant Attempt to Bust Our Unions': Trump Admin Moves to Gut Labor Protections at VA
"This administration wants to break the spirit of working people in this country, but we will not be broken," said National Nurses United.
Aug 07, 2025
Days after the Trump administration said in federal court that it would not move ahead with its plan to end collective bargaining agreements for more than 400,000 government employees until litigation on the issue concluded, the largest federal employees union on Wednesday pledged to fight back against the secretary of veterans affairs' decision to move forward with slashing labor protections.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins notified the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and several other unions that he was implementing an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which required the termination of collective bargaining agreements for agencies whose missions are related to national security.
Labor protections, including those that ensure work disputes can be resolved by a neutral party and that union leaders can take part in contract negotiations, would be eliminated for more than 400,000 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) under the executive order.
Collins said in a letter to AFGE leaders that police officers, firefighters, and security guards would be exempt from the order ending collective bargaining rights, but that the VA "no longer recognizes AFGE as the exclusive representative of any other VA bargaining unit employee," including doctors, nurses, benefits specialists, lawyers, dentists, mental health specialists, and other employees.
A panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last Friday ruled that the administration could move forward with the executive order directing federal agencies to end collective bargaining with federal unions including the AFGE, but the three judges on the panel said they came to that conclusion in part because the White House had said it wouldn't end the labor agreements until the court case was resolved.
Trump has claimed the order is essential to protect national security, suggesting union protections have gotten in the way of maintaining "a responsive and accountable civil service."
"Protecting America's national security is a core constitutional duty, and President Trump refuses to let union obstruction interfere with his efforts to protect Americans and our national interests," reads the executive order signed in March, which quickly became the subject of a lawsuit filed by unions including the AFGE, National Nurses United (NNU), and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
The plaintiffs have argued that the order will impact agencies whose missions are not directly related to national security, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services.
The AFGE also noted Wednesday that Collins' move is inconsistent with guidance from the Office of Personnel Management, which instructs agencies "not to terminate any [collective bargaining agreements] until the conclusion of litigation."
Everett Kelley, national president of the AFGE, said the "decision to rip up the negotiated union contract for majority of [the VA's] workforce is another clear example of retaliation against AFGE members for speaking out against the illegal, anti-worker, and anti-veteran policies of this administration."
VA employees, said Kelley, spoke out against Trump's plan to cut 83,000 jobs at the agency "and consistently educated the American people about how private, for-profit veteran healthcare is more expensive and results in worse outcomes for veterans."
Congressional Republicans have pushed for the privatization of veterans' healthcare, advocating for the Veterans' ACCESS Act, which has been framed as a bill that would "reduce wait times and empower veterans through online self-scheduling," as Rolling Stone reported recently, but would push veterans toward seeking care in the private sector. Collins has also pledged to bring more "choice" to veterans seeking healthcare.
"We don't apologize for protecting veteran healthcare and will continue to fight for our members and the veterans they care for," said Kelley.
National Nurses United (NNU), which represents about 16,000 nurses who work at 23 facilities operated by the VA and whose contracts were also terminated by Collins, said the effort "to erase our collective bargaining agreements is a blatant attempt to bust our unions and to silence the nurses and workers who are standing on the frontlines to protect our country's fundamental institutions."
"We know this administration is hellbent on silencing nurses and other VA workers to steamroll the destruction of the VA. This administration is marching toward the privatization of veteran care so they can move billions of taxpayer money out of the VA system, which is proven to provide excellent veteran-centric care, and into the coffers of private health care corporations run by billionaires," said NNU in a statement.
The union said it would continue to challenge Trump's executive order in court, calling it an "unconstitutional retaliation against the unions for engaging in activity protected by the First Amendment."
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said that "every American who cares about the fundamental freedoms of working people should be outraged by this attack on workers' ability to speak out and stand up at the VA."
"It's clear this is explicit retaliation against VA workers whose unions are standing up to the administration's illegal actions in court and in the streets," said Shuler. "The Trump administration may think they can rip up our contracts and silence anyone who pushes back against their unlawful and anti-worker actions, but we aren't going anywhere. The labor movement will continue to fight this all-out assault on workers with everything we have—and we're calling on Americans across this country to join us."
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