“A new initiative to give veterans easier access to private health care is off to a seamless start in its first three months, Trump administration officials told lawmakers on Wednesday, but they said the growth in referrals to non-government doctors is not indicative of any effort to privatize the Veterans Affairs Department.”
“VA has scheduled more than 1 million consultations for veterans with private health care providers in the first 90 days since it launched a new community care program under the 2018 Mission Act, Richard Stone, executive in charge of the Veterans Health Administration, told a panel of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. That represented a slight uptick in private sector referrals over what VA had issued prior to implementing the new law, when options for veterans to get non-government appointments were more scattershot and restrictive.” Read the full article here.
Source: New Program Leads to Uptick in Vets Using Private Health Care, but VA Insists It’s ‘Not Privatizing’ – By Eric Katz, September 25, 2019. Government Exec.
