Stephen Fisher joined the United States Marine Corps after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. After three tours in Iraq and surviving three roadside bombs, he suffered nerve damage, vision loss and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among many other injuries from his service.
But when he returned home to civilian life, he left one battle in Iraq and began to fight another against the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) bureaucracy attempting to receive healthcare he needed. Fisher filed his first claim in September 2007. Since then, the VA has repeatedly dragged its feet because Fisher couldn’t make all his review appointments for his claims due to working a part-time job as a police dispatcher. His fight for benefits continues.
Fisher’s situation is unfortunately the reality for many military veterans who risked their lives fighting America’s enemies overseas.
The VA has a track record marred with a myriad of problems spanning multiple presidential administrations, such as long wait times, skimping on quality coverage and crumbling facilities that are unable to properly care for veterans. Numerous veterans told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the VA fundamentally misunderstands veterans, and needs major reform in order to stop leaving soldiers behind.
“I’m just stuck in this cyclical loop of being asked to provide additional evidence for something that the VA have fallen short on,” Fisher told the DCNF. “This is something that should have been handled over a decade ago. This has been through four or five presidencies now.”
The Robert J. Dole VA Medical Center, where Fisher received care, told the DCNF that they could not comment on specifics of a patient’s care without Fisher signing a separate release form, which he declined to provide. The national VA also declined to discuss specifics without a release.
“We didn’t question our leaders before going into battle, not knowing whether or not we would come out alive or whole. We just did it,” Montgomery Granger, former U.S. Army major serving for 28 years, told the DCNF. “If I could say something to Donald Trump and to [VA Secretary] Doug Collins, or to Pete Hegseth, or even Elon Musk doing the [Department of Government Efficiency] work: It’s your turn. Just do it. And when you do it, pay attention to the details.”
Wade Miller, former U.S. Marine and senior advisor at Center for Renewing America, suffered nerve damage during his deployment and received quick treatment while overseas through military hospitals. However, when he was discharged and used the VA Medical Center in Dallas to receive care, he quickly realized that VA care was a far cry from what he received overseas.
The North Texas VA also told the DCNF that they do not comment on the specifics of cases without patient consent, with Miller declining to sign a release form with his personal information.
“We encourage any Veteran with concerns to contact us so we can swiftly act and deliver the high-quality care they deserve,” the North Texas VA told the DCNF.
When he moved to the Washington, D.C., area he was forced to go to a VA hospital nearly an hour away, with little flexibility on appointment times.
“My biggest ongoing complaint is not just the extraordinary amount of time in which it would take you to get seen at a VA hospital, but it’s also the VA hospitals that they assign you to,” Miller told the DCNF. “I live in Burke, Virginia, and they make me go to the VA hospital that’s on the east side of DC. So it’s like an hour plus away. I’ve got numerous hospitals within 10 to 15 minutes of me here.”
“There’s already an existing hospital system around us all, and so we don’t need a duplicate VA system, or we at least don’t need to expand it,” Miller told the DCNF.
Moreover, suicides continue to plague the ranks of veterans.
Veteran suicides have remained relatively steady since 2001, hovering around 6,000 reported veteran suicides in 2022, according to 2024 data from the VA. Granger told the DCNF veterans end up taking their own lives in part because of the lack of understanding of veteran problems at the VA, and that disconnect could be the tipping point that sends some veterans over the edge.
“Asking me to describe my PTSD or how many blasts I was exposed to…It’s degrading,” Granger told the DCNF. “The only two things that the VA gets right right now are the death benefit and burying the whole person.”
“They wonder why there’s an epidemic of veteran suicide. Most guys can’t handle this process,” Granger told the DCNF.
The claims backlog has risen dramatically since 2019, going from under 100,000 claims before 2019 to over 250,000 in 2025, according to VA data. The VA denies nearly 30% of claims made without an attorney, and nearly 15% made with one, according to a 2020 VA report.
Despite small improvements, wait times for primary care averaged 22 days in May 2024, exceeding the 20-day standard the VA sets for access to care.
The average age of a VA patient was 64 years old for men, and 49 years for women, according to 2021 VA statistics.
A VA spokesperson told the DCNF that Collins is “focusing relentlessly on customer service and convenience,” highlighting its cuts to DEI policies, personnel changes saving $98 million a year, and its cooperation with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to curtail “waste.”
The VA requested $369.5 billion for fiscal year 2025 under the Biden administration, another increase in the already massive amount of tax dollars granted to the department. Despite the increases in funding, many veterans haven’t seen much progress on the ground.
During Trump’s first term, he greenlit the Community Cares program under the VA MISSION Act, which allows veterans to get specific care from non-VA providers if the department approves the request. Often, veterans will use the provision to go to private practices to get faster, higher-quality care.
However, a group of 24 veterans organizations wrote a letter to the VA in December 2024 alleging that the VA under President Joe Biden was stonewalling access to private providers by abusing a waiting period for inquiries into accessing community care. The VA blamed budgetary constraints within the department on the existence of community care options, despite the fact that a patient only becomes eligible if direct VA care is not available.
Collins said in his confirmation hearing in January that the MISSION ACT was one of the most important pieces of legislation he will seek to fully enforce as secretary. He also pointed to the enforcement of other Trump-era legislation as critical to his new administration, such as the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act and the PACT Act.
Granger told the DCNF that he is confident that the new administration can reform the VA, and reiterated that it shouldn’t be forgotten that the original mission of the VA was to simply care for veterans.
“Abraham Lincoln didn’t say in the second inaugural address ‘care for him who bore the battle, but only if it’s service-related,’ right?” Granger told the DCNF. “He didn’t qualify the statement. If he had, the whole idea of a veterans administration would have been a complete failure from the beginning.”
Featured Image Credit: Wikideas1
