WASHINGTON – Following repeated advocacy by U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH), as well as other Senate Democrats, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced this week that it will no longer pursue its planned reduction in force of roughly 80,000 employees, representing nearly 1 in 5 VA employees. Since the Trump Administration announced its plans to fire 80,000 VA employees, Senator Hassan has consistently pressed VA leadership about the proposed reductions, warning that mass firings would jeopardize veterans’ access to the health care, support, and benefits that they have earned. While the announcement from the VA is an important step forward, the VA still expects to shed 30,000 employees this year through retirements and attrition.
“I am encouraged to see that the VA has listened to the concerns expressed by me and my colleagues, as well as the concerns expressed by veterans in New Hampshire and is no longer pursuing its large-scale reduction of the force at VA. Though I support efforts to eliminate waste and fraud in government, blindly cutting one-fifth of VA’s workforce does not make our government more efficient and instead threatens the care and services that veterans have earned and deserve,” said Senator Hassan. “While this announcement reflects movement in the right direction, the VA has still pushed out thousands of employees who were critical to serving those who have served our country without any clear analysis of the impact. I will continue to push back against any attempts to weaken the VA and dismantle the critical services that it provides for New Hampshire veterans. I will closely monitor the VA’s staffing decisions and speak out against any decisions that result in longer wait times or reduced quality of care.”
Senator Hassan has voiced strong opposition to the planned workforce reductions at the VA, speaking out about the ways in which the firings would weaken services for America’s veterans and pressing VA officials on the issue in recent months. Following the Trump Administration’s announcement of its plans to cut roughly 80,000 VA staff – nearly 1 in 5 employees – Senator Hassan pressed the VA’s head of human resources and top VA doctor at the time to answer questions about the planned firings, but the answers they provided made clear that the VA had come up with an arbitrary number of employees to fire without first analyzing the consequences.
The proposed cuts were particularly concerning given the increased demand for VA services following the implementation of the PACT Act, landmark legislation that Senator Hassan helped develop and pass into law to fundamentally reform how veterans exposed to toxic substances receive health care and benefits. To date, more than 2.4 million PACT Act-related claims have been filed and over 220,000 veterans have enrolled for VA health care under the expanded law, including almost 1,900 Granite Staters. The VA hired thousands of additional staff to meet this intended increase in demand – the very same staff that the Trump Administration planned to fire, threatening to undermine PACT Act veterans’ ability to receive the timely care and benefits they have earned and deserve.
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