The Battle Over Veterans’ Health Care: How the Republican Majority Hopes to Reshape VA

[Tony]

With the new Congress sworn in and President-elect Trump poised for his second inauguration, Republicans have queued up a number of bills that could widely expand veterans’ access to the private health care system, setting up the latest battle over VA’s reliance on what’s known as community care. 

Efforts to reform how the Department of Veterans Affairs provides health care to millions of veterans are heating up in 2025 as pressures to bring down costs and lower wait times for care mount. 

Republicans argue that VA is a bloated bureaucracy that is making a concerted effort to prevent veterans from accessing community care and forcing them to stick with the VA system to curb costs. Democrats, meanwhile, fear that the proposed legislation would strip VA of its ability to provide direct care, disrupting coordination and quality.

Hanging in the balance are nine million veterans enrolled in VA health care, many of whom have frustrations with both VA and community care, and simply want medical care without long wait times and bureaucratic hurdles.