 When it comes to Veterans Health Care Reform, it's hard to separate the noise from the truth. So DAV is setting the record straight. Some candidates, political groups and commissions are talking about privatizing Veterans Health Care and eliminating the VA. VA facilities that are underutilized will be dispensed with and a BRAC-like process will begin to close the other facilities. All enrolled Veterans should now be given the option of community care and a deliberate plan should be developed to transition the others to community care over the next two decades. So why is this such a bad idea and how could it possibly hurt Veterans? If VA were privatized and eliminated, management of the Veterans Health Care system would shift to an unaccountable, independent entity driven not by the needs of Veterans but rather by corporate financial considerations and bottom lines. As an example, the amount of time that private doctors would spend with Veteran patients would likely dwindle, as is the case in the private sector today, where economic pressures have driven down medical appointments to 15 minutes or less. Additionally, in order to control costs, millions of Veterans would have to pay higher out-of-pocket co-payments and deductibles in the private sector. And instead of having the choice to get all their care from one integrated health care system, VA hospitals would be closed and Veterans forced to navigate a private sector market on their own while an independent board decided which Veterans are eligible for care, how much, and what kind of care they get. That's why several polls have shown that Veterans don't want to privatize VA. A bipartisan survey conducted in 2015 found that 80% of Veterans strongly oppose privatization regardless of their political affiliation, branch of service, or geography. So what's a better solution? We must transfer more of VA's non-medical support services like construction, maintenance, and IT development to the private sector, allowing VA to focus on its core mission of providing high-quality, accessible medical care. By integrating community care into an improved VA system instead of eliminating VA, Veterans will have more access points closer to home, providing holistic and coordinated care, the benchmark of quality care. Don't get lost in the noise. Learn more and get involved in the effort to reform Veterans health care at dav.org slash setting the record straight.