In a 'spiral': Nearly 100 doctors sound alarm on Trump’s VA cuts

24 September

A member of the national guard looks on while standing guard during the No Kings protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 14, 2025. REUTERS_Daniel Cole

The Guardian reports nearly 100 doctors from the US Department of Veterans of Affairs (VA) issued a Wednesday letter raising “urgent concerns” about Trump administration policies that that will “negatively affect the lives of all veterans.”

The doctors sent the 14-page document to congressional leaders, VA secretary Doug Collins and the agency’s inspector general, and the Guardian reports it marks the first time VA physicians have spoken collectively about staffing cuts and aggressive privatization moves at the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system.

“We have witnessed these ongoing harms and can provide evidence and testimony of their impacts,” said the letter signed by roughly 170 physicians, psychologists and other health workers. The letter also proclaims its ability to “provide evidence and testimony” of the administration’s damaging “impacts.”

The submission outlines three growing risks to the VA’s mission: 1. Workforce reductions without published objectives or impact assessments on veterans’ healthcare access; 2. The expansion of administrative authority into clinical decisions best made by veterans and their clinician professionals; and 3. The rapid growth of purchased (community) care that threatens to divert resources from VHA’s high-value direct care and veterans’ earned benefits.

If the trend continues, current and former staffers said VA “facilities may be forced to close, and veterans may be forced into costlier, often overburdened community health systems ill-equipped to meet their specialized needs.”

Attorneys say the letter has whistleblower protection status, but that has not stopped the Trump administration from ignoring established law this year. The Guardian reports the Trump administration immediately suspended more than 100 workers without pay who signed an EPA letter warning the EPA has strayed from its core mission to protect human health in favor of corporate polluters.

In its attempt to crush dissent, the Trump administration has also put dozens of Fema employees on leave over similar complaints. But several VA doctors who signed the letter told the Guardian it’s a risk they’re willing to take.

Dr. Lucile Burgo-Black, an assistant clinical professor at Yale University who supervises medical residents at the VA in West Haven, Connecticut, said she signed the letter out of concern for veterans with complex health needs, many arising from their military service, including post-traumatic stress disorder, brain injury and cancers caused from toxic exposure.

Burgo-Black said she feared the new administration is pressing veterans to opt for private care, but if they return to the VA they may find their traditional healthcare gone.

“This has reached a point where we will spiral down,” said Burgo-Black.

Read the full Guardian report at this link.

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