JD Vance said he would “consider” privatizing some veterans’ health services

“I think I would consider it,” replied Vance, a former enlisted Marine who deployed to Iraq in a public affairs role.

Vance, who said the VA was his primary health care system for several years after he left Marine Corpsthen explained that while he believes parts of the VA “actually work very well,” he believes veterans should have more flexibility to seek private health care.

“Let’s say you’re in a rural hospital; the nearest VA is 120 miles away. Why force a veteran to drive two and a half hours to that VA facility when they can get cheaper, better care right in his backyard?” Vance said. “So I wouldn’t say you get rid of everything. I would say you give people more options. I think you’ll save money in the process. You’ll also give veterans more options.”

The comments reopened a bitter debate this election season over the future of the VA. Democrats have accused the general, Republicans and former GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump of wanting to privatize the VA, a charge Republicans have denied.

The campaign of Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris quickly seized on Vance’s remarks, posting a nine-second clip on social media in which Vance said he would consider privatization.

“This is not just a bad policy idea; it’s a slap in the face to the men and women who have served this country, coming from the man running alongside the candidate who called them ‘kidnapped’ and ‘losers,’” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat, co-chairman of the Harris campaign, and Iraq War veteran, said in a statement provided by the campaign. “Veterans deserve more than candidates who will turn their healthcare into a business opportunity the moment they get the chance.”

The Trump campaign responded that the Harris campaign was taking Vance out of context.

“In full exchange, Senator Vance is making it clear that he will not privatize the Department of Veterans Affairs,” William Martin, Vance’s spokesman, said in a statement to Military.com. “The Kamala campaign is again twisting its words and lying about its position because they have nothing but a record of abject failure to run. It’s also worth noting that JD personally relied on the VA for years after he left the Marine Corps. shame on us that you willfully lied about a veteran when it comes to providing quality care and coverage for our veterans.”

During his first term in office, Trump expanded veterans’ ability to see non-VA doctors using VA funding by signing the Mission Act. While veterans were already able to seek outside health care following the VA’s 2014 waiting list scandal, the Mission Act increased the number of veterans eligible for outside care and consolidated several different community care programs into one.

VA guidelines established under the Mission Act say veterans can seek outside assistance if they face more than a 30-minute drive for primary care or mental health services or 60 minutes for specialty care — meaning the veteran described in his scenario Vance to drive two and a half hours. should already be eligible for community care.

The Mission Act received bipartisan support when it passed in 2018, but has since become more partisan. Republicans argued that the VA under the Biden administration undermined the law by limiting the number of referrals to community care. Congressional Republicans they introduced bills to consolidate eligibility rules and make it more difficult for the VA to deny a referral.

Meanwhile, the Democrats charge that the GOP ultimately aims to privatize the VA.

They point to Project 2025, a conservative think tank project for a future Republican president, which calls for reworking the VA’s disability rating system to find “cost savings” and says the next administration should “quickly and explicitly codify VA Mission Act access standards in legislation to prevent VA from avoiding or reducing requirements in the future.”

The plan was written by former Trump administration officials and others with ties to Trump, though Trump has tried to distance himself from the document.

While Vance said expanding access to outside doctors could reduce costs, VA officials said community care costs have increased at an unsustainable pace since the implementation of the Mission Act.

During the podcast interview, Vance also discussed the need to burn “bad apples” within the VA.

“Probably 90 percent, 95 percent of the people who work at the VA are fantastic human beings, but then you have, say, a small slice of the VA who are bad apples that make it very difficult for everyone else to do their jobs. Vance said. “That’s why veterans spend three hours on the phone trying to get an appointment. This is why there are people who kill themselves because they wait 28 days to get a doctor’s appointment. Like, crazy, crazy stuff. But it’s a small piece of VA you should fire these people, right?

In his first term, Trump also signed a law called the Veterans Affairs Whistleblower Protection and Accountability Act, which sought to make it easier for the VA to fire employees accused of misconduct or poor performance.

But the law has faced legal challenges that have weakened its effectiveness and prompted the Biden administration to stop using the accelerated dismissal authorities granted by the bill. Congressional Republicans were working to resuscitate the authorities.