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Leaked VA Memo and Potential Impacts of Pending Large VA Layoffs

Press Releases

According to a leaked memo, VA plans to lay off over 83,000 employees in order to return staffing to fiscal year 2019 levels. This is a stunning reversal of the hiring surge undertaken by the department in order to implement the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act, passed with bipartisan support in 2022 and representing the largest expansion of veterans’ benefits and eligibility for care in decades. 

The scorched-earth policy of indiscriminate firings already underway at the behest of Secretary of Veterans Affairs Collins and Elon Musk’s DOGE minions is disproportionately harming veterans, who make up 30% of the federal workforce. 

Donald Trump is eliminating the very people who best understand the sacrifices and needs of those of us who have served our nation – their fellow veterans. Any further Reduction in Force (RIF) will first go after newer, younger generations of employees like those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

This is done under the false pretense of “efficiency.” While any agency, including VA, should continually seek to improve quality and efficiency, this plan does nothing to achieve such gains. In fact, it will make the agency less responsive and efficient. 

While it is impossible to determine what exactly will be included in the reorganization plan before it has been released in June, potential impacts could be department-wide.

Disastrous Impact on Health Care

“Non-essential” personnel targeted during RIF are the support personnel who schedule appointments, ensure doctors have proper training and licensure, and confirm radiation machines are properly calibrated to give appropriate doses. Firings could lead to:

  • Longer wait times for primary, specialty, and mental health care appointments.
  • Delays getting life-saving medication to veterans.
  •  Slower reimbursement to community care providers, leading them to refuse to join the Community Care Network and accept veteran patients.
  • Poorly coordinated care between VA and community care providers, resulting in duplicative tests, increased costs, and patient confusion.
  • Difficulty purchasing needed supplies ranging from bleach to medical equipment as well as “oxygen, artificial limbs, hearing aids, [and] glasses.”
  • Reduction in training, residencies, and fellowships available for the 70% of U.S. physicians who complete medical education at VA. 
  • Slower reimbursement of travel pay to veterans, many on fixed incomes who rely on those funds to cover gas needed to drive to appointments.
  • Missed calls to the Veterans Crisis Line.

Dismantling foundations of the VA Research Program, which has led to breakthroughs including the pacemaker, liver transplant, nicotine patch, diabetes treatments, shingles vaccine, and innovative prosthetics that benefit all Americans. This will impact:

  • Clinical trials for cancer, suicide prevention, and opioid withdrawal already face delays and disruptions.
  • Researchers serving as WithOut Compensation (WOC) appointees – no VA money is spent on their salaries or benefits – are among those already hit by the existing hiring freeze.

Decimation of VA’s ability to fulfill its Fourth Mission, serving as a backstop to the nation’s healthcare system during national emergencies and disasters. One does not need to go back far to see how crucial this mission is:

  • During the COVID-19 crisis, VA sent personnel to state and community nursing homes, provided PPE to state and local facilities, and admitted hundreds of non-veteran patients for care.

Catastrophic Damage to Benefits

These mass firings may lead to extensive damage in the department’s ability to process and pay out benefits. Impacts may include:

  • An explosion in the backlog of pending claims caused by slower processing of veteran applications for disability compensation, leading to hundreds of thousands of disabled veterans waiting over six months for benefits.
  • Longer wait times for education benefits, hampering the ability of servicemembers to transition smoothly out of the military as well as hurting the 30% of GI Bill beneficiaries who are dependents (spouses or kids of troops & vets).
  • Delays in paying GI Bill benefits will also harm universities.
  • Skyrocketing wait times at call centers.
  • Remaining VBA staff – half of whom are veterans – will experience burnout from overwork.

 

Other Impacts

Beyond care and benefits, VA services impacted by the Musk-led cuts may include:

Burial

  • Delays in scheduling internments so families can lay their loved ones to rest.
  • Challenges maintaining dignified resting places for our nation’s heroes.

Appeals

  • Slowdown in adjudicating cases submitted to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, further delaying final resolution of disability compensation claims.

Homelessness and Suicide

  •  Increase in the number of homeless veterans after years of reductions.
  •  Increase in the number of veteran suicides after finally seeing rates decrease.

Communications

  • Delays informing veterans about critical information during natural disasters.
  • Inability to respond to Congressional inquiries in a timely manner.
  •  Errors and delays in releasing performance data.

Security and Accountability 

  • Slashed number of Inspector General audits and investigative reports, allowing criminals to go unpunished, health care quality to worsen, and fraud to fester.
  • Cybersecurity vulnerabilities exposing patient and employee data.
  • Reduced training for employees, including on high-priority topics such as suicide prevention and sexual harassment.

Performance

  •  Decimation in employee morale leading to reduced productivity.
  • Substantial cost to taxpayers when fired employees sue and win.

Conclusion

The cumulative effect of these cuts will be to break the department – and then be able to point to the broken agency as an example of how government doesn’t work, using that as an excuse to dismantle VA entirely. But contrary to Republican fever dreams, turning VA into a health insurance card will not work: there is not adequate capacity in the civilian sector to absorb 7 million more patients and community providers lack expertise in military-specific conditions. VA provides higher quality, more culturally competent, more evidence-based care at lower cost to taxpayers and is a system worth saving.