Veteran's Post - Successes at The VA

The VA is making great progress in serving veterans. The latest scorecard shows things going in the right direction.

For example, since the beginning of January 2025, they've opened 40 new healthcare facilities and completed 82 million direct care appointments. During that time they reduced the backlog of veterans waiting for benefits by over 70%.

When it comes to community care appointments, they completed 59 million in 2025. A big push, started at the end of 2025, cleared the backlog of healthcare applications for 900,000 veteran spouses, survivors, caregivers and dependents. They managed to provide over 3 million appointments outside of normal hours, giving veterans the option of early morning, evening and weekend appointments. Over 215,000 veterans have been enrolled in VA healthcare just this year alone.

For 2026 they've earmarked $4.8 billion to fix and repair healthcare facilities, to include modernization of the electronic health record systems and building upgrades such as elevators and boiler plants.

More than 51,000 homeless veterans were helped into permanent housing last year.

The VA managed to save $24 million per year just by centralizing the payroll system for VA employees, money that can now be spent in other areas.

But the big-ticket item, one that will have a major impact, is that the VA managed to get $10.44 billion in drug price reductions this year alone - the biggest price reduction they've ever had. This started with President Trump and his push for lower drug costs. For the civilian population, they just announced the largest drug price reduction in over 60 years after requesting the world's 17 largest drugmakers to lower prices to what they charge other countries. It's said this could save $529 billion over the next 10 years.

I'll be the first in line to point the finger of blame at the VA for things that go wrong, but seeing this list, it's clear they're doing many, many things right.

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