Is the VA Being Targeted? The Truth Behind Project 2025
There’s a political plan brewing in the background — and if you’re a veteran who relies on VA healthcare or benefits, it’s worth paying attention.
It’s called Project 2025, a sweeping conservative policy blueprint being promoted by the Heritage Foundation and several policy influencers aligned with the former Trump administration. Inside its 900+ pages is a proposed government overhaul — one that includes significant changes to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The goal? Efficiency, accountability, and expanded healthcare Choice for veterans.
Sounds promising — and in many ways, it is.
But it’s also something that needs a watchful eye.
What Is Project 2025, Exactly?
Project 2025 isn’t law (yet). It’s a transition plan — a “starter kit” for an incoming administration looking to reshape federal agencies quickly. Within it are proposed changes to the VA, including:
- Expanding private healthcare access for veterans
- Redefining eligibility for VA healthcare
- Streamlining services through “choice-based” models
- Replacing entrenched leadership to restore trust and efficiency
Many of these concepts stem from frustrations that date back more than a decade — especially the 2014 VA wait time scandal, where manipulated data led to veterans dying before receiving care.
In response, veterans across the country began fighting for something different: Choice.
For many, Project 2025 is a continuation of that fight — not the beginning of it.
Why Veterans Support Choice (and Why It Still Matters)
The idea of Choice — allowing veterans to seek care outside the VA — isn’t new, and it isn’t partisan. It was formalized under the VA MISSION Act in 2018 and has become a crucial accountability tool for many veterans who want timely, quality care.
Supporters say it provides:
- Faster access to care
- More flexibility for rural or underserved veterans
- A necessary safety valve when VA services fall short
This matters. Veterans died waiting for VA appointments. Some waited months for basic check-ups. Choice gave them a lifeline.
But with any system shift, there are risks — especially if reform is used as a smokescreen to dismantle the core VA infrastructure entirely.
What to Watch For …
While increased Choice is welcomed by many, Project 2025 also includes language that suggests potentially narrowing who qualifies for VA care — which could affect:
- Veterans with “lower” disability ratings
- Gulf War and post-9/11 veterans with chronic illnesses
- Those not considered “combat-wounded” under a narrow definition
That’s where the caution comes in.
Expanding options is good. But cutting access under the guise of efficiency? That’s something the veteran community should keep tabs on — not because Choice is the enemy, but because not all implementation is created equal.
So, Is the VA Really at Risk?
Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on how reform is implemented — and by whom.
Project 2025 isn’t law, but it is gaining traction. It’s supported by several political PACs and influencers with real power. If enacted without proper oversight, parts of the plan could unintentionally gut services for some veterans while trying to improve them for others.
This isn’t about fear. It’s about foresight.
How Veterans Can Stay Informed and Engaged
Veterans should always be at the table when decisions are made about their care. Here’s how you can make sure your voice is heard:
- Contact your representatives — and make it clear you support thoughtful reform, not blanket cuts.
- Participate in your local VA advisory groups or town halls.
- Join conversations in veteran-focused organizations like DAV, IAVA, or the American Legion.
- Support policies that protect both VA access and healthcare choice.
Final Thoughts …
Project 2025 may offer some genuine improvements — especially for those who’ve experienced VA failure firsthand. Choice isn’t the enemy. For many, it’s a lifeline.
But we also can’t ignore the risk of swinging too far in the other direction and dismantling the very system veterans fought to build. The key is balance: choice with accountability, reform with protection, innovation without exclusion.
Veterans deserve the best care — no matter who provides it.
Let’s just make sure we don’t lose the good while fixing the broken.
If it’s not incompetence, it’s just someone in there just refusing to carry out the law and adequately treat veteran’s medical problems. And I’ve even heard a relatively low level employee utter “Many people have tried to sue the VA,” as if try was about as far as they’d get. I hope every one of them gets sandwiched in between Trump’s lard ass cheeks, the Veterans, and the courts. Trump should fire 200 thousand of them AFTER he hands out the insurance cards. Then there’s nothing the courts can do really. It’s too late for them to do anything to improve the place because after all it’s their dereliction that has the place in shambles.
I see a lot of people talking about healthcare systems and coordinating with people outside VA. Number one, I’ve known at least one of the best surgeons in the the private sector, specialty, who wouldn’t do business with the VA because of their unethical practices and dishonesty and underhandedness. Then you got VA… wanting to keep their shit show private and not listening to outsiders. You think they want to expose their denial of care to the world? You think they want their rug sweeping to be less effective?
Seen veterans with college degrees who depended on VHA for medical care. Next thing you know it they’re out of work and home suffering because VA wouldn’t fix their medical problem. It was service connected too. So tell me how the next trillion dollars they get will impact that veteran or any veteran for that matter. The incompetence and malfeasance at VA is the only thing that’s world class. The healthcare is a coin flip.
As the daughter & caregiver of a Veteran who required care from a local VA. The VA was a true lifeline which all Veterans should be allowed to receive. Choice is being undermined by lack of Doctors, Nurses & Rural Access. The cuts that are being done by the DOGE & TRUMP ADMINISTRATION will not increase access to quality care in a timely manor for Veterans or the poor. Veterans are part of the Community. when Community care is undermined by cuts to Medicare & Medicaid dollars Rural Hospitals & Care centers close. Where is the quality, timely care coming from when potential doctors & healthcare personnel are not hired or never apply? The foreign doctors & healthcare professionals are not being hired or allowed visas. Trump is closing or denying foteign student access to Universities & Medical Colleges that do not want the Government to Control their system of education. To deny or evade the addressing of how these various institutions work together to provide the best care is irresponsible. Cuts will not improve care, it will undermine choice & hurt not only Veterans but all people. Just think, if there is one Orthopedic doctor who is the most qualified who will get care? The Veteran who has VA HEALTHCARE versus a person who has BCBS for insurance. I have seen patients put on back burner because of the bottom line. Where there are large, fully manned VA facilities like Chicago, New York, Boston. VA Choice can work but in Rural areas it is impossible without Rural Hospitals & Doctors. Medicare & Medicaid $ make VA Choice possible. We must provide the dollars for both.
The Heritage Foundation want to enact these cuts to provide the Richest Corporations & Billionaires with massive tax cuts.
Please seriously check out what you are promoting before you put so many in jeopardy. No Veteran should be denied access to the VA Health System and the Doctors & Medical services provided.
Needs to be an insurance program with no denial of care. VA is a denial of care machine and it’s not full healthcare. There are too many things that they just refuse to do. No amount of money encourages them to do otherwise and they have unlimited legal resources and immunity. That needs to change or else VA needs to go away and veterans should be given insurance cards. It’s a wreck.
Sir, You are doing good work, There’s a but VA needs find a way to connect the medical records system with other medical systems ie like UNC hospital at Chapel Hills , MY Chart application it talks to other hospitals, clinics. But not the VA . This system is very secure , handles thousands daily. Then wait times I think would get shorter also.
You could get the Mychart system to personalize VA and hospital records to merge. Also I think it would be cheaper to maintain.
Feel free to call me/but text me first so I know who and it’s not a spam call.
People still drive 3 hours away for an MRI when they could have only driven 20 minutes local. I’ve gone ahead and paid out of pocket once, and even after that they wouldn’t fix what was wrong no matter where I went at VA. This kinda shit has been happening for a decade. The VA will maintain validity at the expense of veterans. It’s a horrible system that has impacted hundreds of thousands negatively. Checks and balances are a joke in this country. It’s just not happening in any meaningful or effective way. I’ll move out of this broken Republic one of these days. These people are a bunch of derelicts.
screw all of you!
Who you talking to you mentally disordered pig? They ought to shoot antipsychotics up your ass and then kick you up the fuckin asshole. You got something valuable to say then say it. Otherwise perhaps someone should plug your mouth with gargantuan salami… yeah beat baloney on your face you deplorable cunt.
On this Memorial Day, we thank the federal courts, for allowing sabotage of an American healthcare system, Veterans Healthcare Administration, by not only Trump but many of those people who work at that deplorable wreck. Thanks for nothing you vile cocksuckers🖕 Maybe you deserve Hitler to take away your security detail over your own abominable stupidity
The Veterans Healthcare Administration, they collect no data on their own degeneracy and incompetence. No numbers on those who left in disgust over decades. No stacks of denial of care letters although they do it all the time. No calculation of how much suffering has occured due to them not telling people from day one that it’s not full healthcare. Is it not reasonable for people to believe that service connected conditions will be treated properly? Where is the remedy for the suffering? You’d never know this country had federal courts unless it was written in a book!
Happy Memorial Day… accept at the country club and jobs program that is the pretend healthcare system. Spinal conditions they won’t treat…used to give pain medicine but they don’t even do that anymore. Surgery you can forget about it until you’ve lived 30 years in pain. Even some mental health conditions they won’t treat. They use that as a means to discriminate. They lie, cheat, abuse, and in general are insubordinate and lawless entities. They blame it all on anyone and anything else you can think of other than themselves.
Uhh… they’d rather hire 400K plus people to run a trillion dollar guinea pig farm and pill dispensary than offer a full range of healthcare services. Doesn’t matter how much money they get, they deny care and hire the worst people in the field. It’s a decades long failure that needs to go away so they can actually use money wisely. They’ll only continue to hire people out the ass instead of offering people a full range of medical services. Excuses for not rendering healthcare are endless at Veterans Healthcare Administration, and this activity is protected by the government. We need something different that forces them to carry out the laws passed by Congress without having to take them to court. They aren’t carrying out the mission, and for no good reason, because they have a mountain of money. It’s just a fucked up, dysfunctional organization where if one person isn’t doing something stupid, it’s another.