This piece argues that the VA reforms begun under Donald Trump restored real choices for veterans, that recent rollbacks and internal resistance at the VA have undone progress, and that the “Take Care of America’s Veterans Act” and related measures are needed now to protect veterans, restore timely care, and hold the system accountable.
Donald Trump’s first-term policy reshaped how veterans access care by pushing accountability and expanding options outside the VA system. Laws like the VA MISSION Act gave veterans the right to seek community care when the VA couldn’t deliver, and those changes represented a real shift toward patient-centered service. Veterans responded to that shift; they wanted results over rhetoric. Turning those gains into lasting law was the logical next step.
Since then, progress stalled. The Biden administration narrowed some community care options and internal practices at VA facilities slipped back toward the old status quo. That retreat produced longer waits and broken trust, and in at least one documented case delays contributed to a tragic outcome for a cancer patient. When the system puts process over people, veterans lose the most important thing: timely care.
Career staff inside the department are a big part of the problem because they can frustrate reforms without anyone noticing until damage shows up in the waiting room. Many of these employees have spent decades inside VA bureaucracy and naturally defend the systems that define their careers. When policies expand choice, some employees see it as a threat rather than a liberation for veterans. That institutional instinct to preserve the status quo costs lives and erodes the public’s faith in the department.
The “Take Care of America’s Veterans Act” aims to lock reform into law by combining dozens of measures that veterans and advocates keep asking for. It includes provisions to protect access, speed appeals, and clarify a Veterans’ Bill of Rights so veterans know what to expect. Making those promises enforceable rather than optional is crucial; when rights are only aspirational, they disappear in practice. Veterans want a dependable system, not another round of campaigning promises.
Public opinion among military voters shows frustration with how things have played out. Support remains for candidates and policies that protect veterans’ access to outside care, but approval dips when voters assess how the job is actually being done. That split matters politically because veterans are a decisive constituency in tight races. Lawmakers who ignore veteran priorities risk losing more than goodwill—they risk electoral losses that could have been avoided with straightforward action.
There are obvious steps VA leadership can take right now, even before Congress acts. The department can publicly endorse the bill’s pilot programs, instruct regional offices to process community care referrals promptly, and make implementation directives clear and visible. Leadership that makes veterans the priority can change culture faster than critics expect, because operational guidance combined with accountability forces slow-walking practices to stop.
The consequence of failing to act is not hypothetical; history shows the human cost. In a notorious past scandal, secret wait lists and hidden delays at a Phoenix VA facility left hundreds of veterans waiting while appointments remained unfulfilled, and lives were lost. The department cannot repeat that error. Protecting a system at the expense of veterans is indefensible, and Congress should not let bureaucratic inertia dictate outcomes for those who served.
Organized opposition is already mounting from lawmakers, unions, and groups that prefer defending the current institutional setup. That resistance tends to frame choice as attack rather than reform, and it often masks bureaucratic self-interest as concern for veterans. Reformers must push back, insisting that veterans get the clear rights and reliable access they earned through service. As Theodore Roosevelt put it, “A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.” Veterans deserve that square deal now and into the future.
