Since President Trump’s return to Washington, Democrats and their media allies have gone ballistic at the new administration’s attempts to shrink the federal government and increase its overall efficiency. And that statement is especially true when it comes to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Following the confirmation of VA Secretary Doug Collins, the Trump administration has sought to bring much needed reforms to the second largest federal agency that watchdogs have regularly found mismanages hundreds of millions to billions of dollars every year. This has included slashing what Collins classified as “nonessential roles, like interior designers and other things — DEI,” working with DOGE to identify wasteful contracts, and end radical Biden-era policies.

With help from deceptive “journalists,” Democrats have settled on the narrative that any such cuts or reforms to the agency will result in veterans losing access to care — a claim Collins has refuted by noting that more money and personnel don’t always produce superior outcomes. “The department’s history shows that adding more employees to the system doesn’t automatically equal better results,” the secretary told lawmakers in a Senate hearing last month.

Yet, despite their insistence to the contrary, the VA isn’t the perfect picture of health Democrats are making it out to be. Military veterans who spoke with The Federalist argued there are numerous longstanding issues within the agency they believe Collins and the new administration can and should address to ensure America’s heroes receive the care they deserve.

“I’ve lost more friends and teammates of mine from the military to suicide and addiction than I have to al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban combined, ” Navy and Marine Corps veteran Tom Sauer told The Federalist. The VA has been “mismanaged for a long time … and there are effective changes that could be made right now” to improve treatment access for veterans.

A Bureaucracy Resistant to Change

Like many government agencies, one of the biggest hindrances to transformational change at the VA is the unelected bureaucracy. According to Sauer, this entrenched fourth branch of government has resisted fully embracing the department’s Community Care program, which gives veterans the option of seeking health care treatment from local community providers instead of those within the VA network.

Veterans’ use of Community Care has grown significantly in recent years, especially following its expansion in the 2018 VA Mission Act. In FY2023, for example, Community Care “accounted for nearly 40 percent of VA’s total contract obligations,” according to the Government Accountability Office.

Despite the VA’s own polling indicating higher veteran satisfaction with community care than VA hospitals, Sauer said that a significant portion of the agency “looks at Community Care as the enemy.”

“The analogy I make is like if the VA or a VA medical center is like … a struggling public school district [and] Community Care [represents] the charter schools … that provide arguably better treatment,” Sauer said. “It’s just based off of incentives, because most of the time the VA is allergic to Community Care and only refers [patients] out when they really feel that they need to, or they’re dealing with a patient that’s particularly difficult … But the way the law is written is [patients] should be able to get care if they obviously feel better served going through a Community Care provider. The VA, according to the letter of the law, is obligated to do that, but [in too many cases], they don’t.”

In addition to serving in America’s military, Sauer is the co-founder and CEO of the MacArthur Group, an organization devoted to assisting veterans with addiction and mental health issues. The group boasts more than seven treatment facilities nationwide, according to its website.

Retired service members John Byrnes (Marine Corps and Army) and Jim Whaley (Army) also noted their concerns about the VA’s administrative failures in remarks to The Federalist. Byrnes currently serves as the strategic director of Concerned Veterans for America (CVA), while Whaley is the CEO of Mission Roll Call. Both organizations advocate for and on behalf of veterans and veterans’ issues across America.

While Byrnes and Whaley described having generally positive personal experiences with frontline VA medical care and personnel, they echoed Sauer’s criticisms that the VA bureaucracy too often fails to deliver for veterans in need.

Byrnes discussed how, in years past, he’s dealt with bureaucratic incompetence ranging from “payments and bills crossing in the mail” and problems with scheduling appointments to “unsolicited” prescriptions “being sent to the wrong address.” Waley said that while he hasn’t experienced any major issues during his relatively short time under the VA system, he does not discount the “enormous waste” within the agency and “the growth of the number of [agency employees] with no checks or balances.”

Citing Democrats’ “false” attacks against the Trump administration’s reforms thus far, Waley said, “It’s unfortunate because it’s a lot of bureaucracy at the VA, and if you could take some of that middle management of bureaucracy out of the system, they could move faster, resource programs that show promise, [and] reduce wait times.”

“You can’t say on one hand that you want improvements and you want the VA to be better, and yet you won’t allow any change. How do you expect it to get better? It just doesn’t make sense,” Whaley added.

The Way Forward

Despite the challenges ahead for the administration, Sauer, Byrnes, and Whaley pointed to several potential solutions Collins and his team could undertake to rectify the agency’s inefficiencies.

For one, Sauer said, the secretary could “immediately change access standards” as it relates to Community Care so that “a veteran who [is having] a mental health crisis or an addiction crisis can get treatment” as quickly as possible. He said, “At the executive level, [the secretary could [change the access standards to] reduce the wait time to zero days and the driving distance time to zero miles.”

“If Doug [Collins] were to implement these policy changes immediately, they would save dozens of veterans’ lives within days and hundreds within months,” Sauer added.

Byrnes espoused similar sentiments, saying that while access standards “were promulgated under the Mission Act,” the VA bureaucracy “has been recalcitrant” to fully embrace them. While agreeing that the executive should make changes in the immediate, he pointed to CVA-backed legislation introduced by Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., and Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, that would “reinforce the Mission Act [with regard to] access standards” and codify them “into statutory law rather than just having them be internal regulations for the VA.”

CVA is also backing a bill introduced by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., that seeks to shrink the VA’s role in the Community Care “referral process.”

Byrnes and Whaley also recommended the VA look towards collaborating with nonprofits and other nongovernmental organizations to help veterans — particularly those suffering from mental health and/or addiction — find the treatments they need as quickly as possible. Whaley added that such partnerships could go beyond health care-related matters to assist newly retired service members “plug into the [veteran] community” and “make that transition” from the service.

The Mission Roll Call CEO noted that failure to address these critical issues within the VA and enact meaningful reforms not only does a disservice to those who wore the uniform, but that it could impact military recruitment moving forward.

“Veterans’ issues are recruitment issues,” Whaley said. “If someone sees [service members] come back from active duty” and the system lets them “fall through the cracks, how likely would you be to join the military? So, I think we need to do a much better job in transitioning veterans, and I’d love to see a national effort to make sure that [happens].”