"I rely on them." Veterans fear fallout from planned Veterans Affairs department staff cuts

 

"I rely on them." Veterans fear fallout from planned Veterans Affairs department staff cuts




Jack Ferguson, a veteran from the Philadelphia area, had some worrisome issues on his mind today as he visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Ferguson, who served as an Army plane mechanic in Vietnam, was concerned about possible staff cuts at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the health care services he could lose.

“I rely on them for all my vaccinations, my booster shots, my Covid shots I got there, my flu shots I get there,” Ferguson told CNN.

Earlier this week, CNN reported that the Trump administration is planning to cut tens of thousands of employees at the VA, based on an internal memo obtained by CNN. The memo states that the department aims to revert to its 2019-era staffing levels. That means that more than 70,000 employees could be terminated, out of the more than 470,000 people the VA employed as of October 2024.

Patrick Murray, a Marine veteran from the Iraq war who is an amputee, told CNN that if the VA cuts staff that drastically, the services he could lose would be tough to replace.

“What I use the VA for is things like my wheelchair,” said Murray, who is now the legislative director for the group Veterans of Foreign Wars. “Wheelchairs can be thousands of dollars. If those services are reduced at VA, if certain prosthetics, if certain other functions like that are rolled back, that’s going to cost a lot for veterans like me.”

Peter Kasperowicz, a spokesperson for the VA expanded on the broader concerns about the possible staff cuts at the department.

“V.A. will always provide Veterans, families, caregivers, and survivors the health care and benefits they have earned,” he said in a statement. “But we’re also making major improvements to strengthen the department … many are using rumor, innuendo and disinformation to spread fear in the hopes that V.A. will just keep doing the same thing it has always done. But we have an obligation to make V.A. work better for the Veterans, families, caregivers and survivors we are charged with serving, and that is what we will do.”

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