Americans are capable of achieving extraordinary things when they have the freedom and opportunity to do so. This is American Potential and here's your host, Jeff Craig. All right, welcome to the program. Thanks for joining us. Listen, concerned veterans for America. We're going to talk a little bit about that organization.
It's an organization of veterans, military family members and patriotic Americans that work to defend the freedoms they and their families fought and sacrificed for and one of the issues they're working on right now and have been for quite a while is to make sure veterans get the health care they deserve. And that the laws that Congress passed are being followed in 2014, it was discovered that veterans were having to wait weeks and even months in some cases to get an appointment.
And then there was this terrible tragedy really at the V A in Phoenix, it was discovered there was a secret wait list, a secret wait list That at least 40 veterans died while they were waiting for care. What, what an absolute tragedy.
Four years later, the V A mission act was passed and that allowed for more access to community care and going outside the V A system, if that's what the veteran chose to do, but it seems that the V A again was standing in the way of veterans getting the care that they need. So on today's podcast, we have executive director of concerned veterans for America Russ, Dorsten to talk about how cvs working on making sure veterans are getting access to timely health care.
Russ, thanks for being here, Jeff, thanks for having me today on this important issue. Okay. So Russ and I, we worked together occasionally and I found something new about Russ. I just had to ask him. So Russ said this morning, he was telling me he was a presidential elector in 2008 for the state of Texas and that was the election, John mccain versus Barack Obama, Texas went for mccain. And so the way this works is the elector from the party that wins.
They get actually elected as an elector and they cast their votes in the electoral college. But you guys were getting pressured, you were an elector and you're getting pressure to not vote for mccain and to vote for Obama. This is kind of interesting, tell us the story. Yeah. So I have been engaged in grassroots politics, Republican politics since the mid nineties.
And I've seen all sorts of silly protest, Republican party headquarters over things like Indians being massacred in the Yucatan Peninsula. And, and I asked the party chairman is like, why are they protesting Republican Party? And she said, you know, when the wind blows, that come protest us. And so, and so I got a firsthand experience of that 10 years later, when I'm getting, you know, us in the delegation elected by the state convention by our peers and to represent my congressional district.
And we head into the capital. There's a group of protesters out there protesting us taking our vote and they were literally pleading with us to change our vote to support Biden and Obama instead of mccain and oh goodness, drawn a blank. Sorry. And we're like you guys won. What's the point? Well, we wanted to be unanimous and, you know, you guys shouldn't vote for awful people like that. And it was silly.
We chuckled and we went in and we kept our promises and we voted the way that we pledged to do, but it just, I got tickled that people spent their time doing that. Well, and what's interesting about that is an elector. You're there to cast the vote for the people on behalf of the people of Texas and they voted for John mccain. So you would have been violating, you know, the trust with them if you had voted any other way. So, um yeah, very particular to keeping oaths and promises.
I've been doing that for a long time was too bad. More politicians didn't do that. What we need is a few more politicians that would do that. All right. I want to talk to you about concerned veterans for America. First. I want to talk about the name because I think some people think, well, is it concerned veterans for America or concerned veterans of America is concerned veterans for America? Why is that? Yeah, that's a great question.
It's one of the things that we speak about a lot in when we're at town halls or any type of meeting, uh, when the, when the organization was founded, we really wanted to project that veterans who had once taken a pledge to defend and serve, uh protect the Constitution, United States and put our lives on the line to do that, that we were calling them for a second term of service and that we were here to serve, um, to serve America and that we were for American liberty and prosperity.
And, uh, one of the things that we really try to drive across is, yes, there are issues that we lobby about to remove barriers that, that get in veterans ways.
Um But there's a lot that this country needs and that we are obviously a trusted source but are also subject matter expert on several things like foreign policy, like, um the downside of socialized medicine that happens at the Veterans administration and that we, we feel like a lot of the policies that we advocate for veterans are actually things that apply to the entire American. Um, populace. And so these principles cut across so many different areas.
And we said, hey, veterans, we need a lot of you are dissatisfied. You feel like your promise has been broken to you, the social contract and broken to you and getting your healthcare delivered on time and in a healthy manner, let's not only go fight for ourselves and, and we, we got a lot of veterans into the fight to do that, But let's make sure we advance those principles for every citizen in the United States.
So, you know, when we're gonna talk a little bit more about this, so we just kind of throw this out there when we're talking about health care. One of the things, you know, the V A has over, over time trapped veterans to get service in the V A system. And it's almost like that this whole issue of school choice or educational choice.
Um, you know, why shouldn't a veteran have the ability to go outside of that system if that's what they choose, the veterans should be getting the best care that they want to get. And we're gonna, we're gonna talk about that a little bit more and I am, we're gonna get to that. But that's, that's a major, major issue that I know concerned veterans for America has been working on.
But I want to ask you before we get into that, you know, this new congress just hit the ground running, uh, in January. So what, what are kind of what C V A working on, concerned veterans for America working on legislative priorities? What are you trying to, to move the needle on?
Well, fortunately, um, for us, we've had a lot of congressional members who have seen a huge spike in um, constituents complaining about what's going on with the V A healthcare system and how the promises that were made to them to go into community care aren't being kept. And so we have their ear. We have a lot of members of Congress who are coming to us and say, hey, how can we help fix this? And obviously we're subject matter experts.
And so we've been able to advise there's a couple of key bills. Senator Blackburn has uh an excellent one, Veterans Healthcare Freedom Act and it would allow veterans to be able to use a system that already exists in the V A. And let me explain that real quick right now. If you are enrolled in the V A and you need to go to an urgent care clinic, you can go to that clinic and receive um care without having to ask permission from the V A to do so.
Um and it's automatically paid for, there's no dispute over your bill that doesn't exist for emergency room visits and it doesn't exist for community care. And so the V A gets to, to tell you yes, you have choice when we tell you have choice. So the idea of this bill is let's take that one segment of the V A that's working urgent care um administration.
And let's set up a system to where veterans in a pilot program are able to use it the exact same way they do at urgent care, but use it for community care, use it for emergency room care and it should not work over a three year period they want to implement to the entire country. So imagine this Medicaid and Medicare, you don't go to the government asked for permission to go see the doctor.
You go to somebody who is, who is certified in Medicaid or Medicare, the buildings all set up, you need to go see the doctor, you go see if the government pays the bill. That is what this health care Freedom Act would do that Senator Blackburn is proposing and we're a big advocate of that. So, you know, when, when we talk, we talk about this all the time and this, this podcast is about the government imposed barriers that people have to break through. And this is a great example of it.
We've talked about it in health care, all the different things in, in the area of health care. Um you know, for civilians that, that, that stand in the way, certificate of need and, and you know, the limits on telehealth and limits on H S A S all of that stuff. But this is a great example of like, what if you're a veteran, why shouldn't, if you want to go to the V A system? And that's where you think you get the best care, you should go there.
But for those veterans who don't think they get the best care there, they should be able to go somewhere else and not be limited. And that's really what this is about is breaking that government imposed barrier that the government has, has erected in front of veterans. Let me ask you about that. Your focus at, at C V A I think right now is to hold the Department of Veterans Affairs accountable and to protect these veterans health care options.
And so talk about how you're doing that at C V A. Yeah. So we have a two pronged um battle here. One is to propose legislation that makes a difference. Uh And, and we just talked about that. The other thing we're doing is we're assisting both the House and Senate Veteran Affairs Committee uh that are trying to dig into the bottom of why the V A is not even upholding the current law and why they're constantly undermining it.
Um We saw when the Mission Act first was implemented, uh It was popular, it was successful, uh almost too successful and so much so that there are people seeking community care at such a rapid rate. We believe the V A panicked and made it harder to justify asking for more and more money when less and less people are coming to see you.
And so we noticed as soon as COVID hit, there began um this pattern of canceling millions of appointments than making it harder for the V A for a veteran who qualified, either due to distance or how long it took to the appointment. There are things that automatically qualify, qualify him. Um we noticed that they were undermining that they were giving them wrong information. They even went so far as to take down the website that educated on community care.
They're throwing up barriers left and right. And we've seen the VA go back to the 2014 Phoenix scandal type things where they were configuring statistics on purpose and delaying veterans health care on purpose to make it look like veterans were getting, seeing in a timely manner when in fact, they were not. And so we engaged um some of the information that came out of Americans for Prosperity Foundation.
Um they filed a foia request which I know you talked about a little bit before in a previous podcast. And we started to see um, documents that came out that supported the very theory that we had that they were intentionally denying and undercutting the intent of the 2018 Mission Act.
And so we're, we're supplying uh Congress with, with that information, we're assisting them in investigations and how, how this has taken place and we're bringing subject matter, expert expertise that we have accumulated over 10 years, uh, to those committees and making this information and testimony, um, uh, to bring in the first hand and including thousands of stories of veterans who have had their healthcare get worse or in some cases if you've seen in the paper or heard on TV,
committing suicide in V A parking lots and other places because they, they've just reached an end to their healthcare, healthcare frustration. This is, it's infuriating. I mean, it is really infuriating.
My father was a veteran, my father in law, a veteran and you know, I think about that, that they go out, they sacrifice and sometimes a military career in other times, you know, they, they, they risk their lives and, and alter their lives with some life changing events that happened in their service and then they come home and you've got people within the V A who are doing this and what is the intention here that what is, what are some of these employees in the V A?
And not, not all, there are some really good employees, I'm sure in the V A system but, but the ones that are doing this are doing it to justify their existence and their job and to continue to get more funding for V A rather than to care about the veteran. I mean, that's pretty sick that somebody would do that. It's, it's infuriating. I don't know any other better word for it than that.
Well, Jeff, you touched on it early on when you talked about how this is similar to a certificate of need or, or choice in education. They're really ironic thing is, um, you know, we make two promises when, when a veteran signs up, we won, we said we're not going to pay you a lot and that's not a promise. That's a fact. But should you get injured in the line of duty? We're gonna take care of your health care need. And should you want to further your education?
Uh, when you get out of service, you're gonna get a G I bill and you're gonna be able to get financial help. Well, the ironic thing is the government allows some veteran to shop his benefit in education where, uh, in the public it's just the opposite. And when it comes to health care, we don't get the shop, unlike Medicaid, Medicare or other government run programs. The really tragic thing that we're seeing right now is we're seeing enlistment.
Um, they set an all time low and not, hasn't been this bad since Vietnam era and I can't help but think that the 18 to 22 year olds in this country are looking at the social contract that we've made to our veterans who, who we made these promises to, who put their lives on the line and they're looking at that and they're looking at what's going on with the endless wars we're engaged in there, looking at how we're not keeping our promises when it comes to health care.
There's not a lot of incentives for young people to really believe that if they put their life on the line, we're gonna be there for him when it's, when their service is done. Yeah, I think that's right. I think, you know, these recruitment issues that there's so much there and it really is a break of faith with the people who the men and women who have worn the uniform. You mentioned the Phoenix V A waitlist scandal.
And, uh, I want to just have you give us a little more detail about what that was. Maybe there's people listening who don't fully understand what that was. So, um, a lot of the administrative administrations, hospital administrations bonuses were based on how their wait times were kept low.
And so to keep those low, what they ended up doing was taking some veterans who were not getting there, getting there canceled, excuse me, their appointments canceled frequently or they weren't getting them logged in time. They put them on a separate list to keep them out of the statistics they were giving to Congress.
And so their healthcare suffered so that, that V A hospital could get the bonuses that they qualified for, actually didn't qualify for and have amazing fraud to get to get qualified for. So this, this exists in any bureaucracy is a bureaucracy comes before the need of the person they're supposed to be serving. But unfortunately, it got so bad that they were willing to, uh Jerry rigs statistics so that they could a get bonuses and be, get more funding.
But when they went back to Congress the next year, that's, it's just incredible. Were people fired over this? That's the ironic thing. Eventually. Um, I think there was one person held accountable but there were hundreds of people involved and I think there was one scapegoat that's him. That is, that, that's what we find so frustrating, right on this, on this show, right? It is government is almost never held accountable for things like this. And these are people's lives.
I mean, there are people who lost their lives because of that incompetence and because of that hubris to try and make themselves look better. I mean, this is incredible. There's one entity that's allowed to have a monopoly and that's the government. We would never stand for this type of monopoly that would cost people's lives in the free market. But the government for some reason thinks that they're allowed to monopolize veteran healthcare.
And Congress is trying to put an end to that and we're trying to help them do that. So after that happened, the V A mission act got passed and you were a big part of that. Certainly the concerned veterans for America was a gigantic part of that. Um, once did that fix the problem did that help? What did it do? It greatly helped. Um, one of the things that we saw when we first pushed for passage of that, it was probably popular among veterans by, I'd say 65% or so.
A lot of the DC veteran organizations. And of course, we're opposed to it because they like being in tight with the VA. And so we worked a lot with the state and local V F W post and American legion posts, etcetera, etcetera. And it, we drove up popularity around two thirds, a little less than two thirds once it became law and it became a reality. We saw pulling on it, shoot above 90% among veterans. It was extremely popular.
It was too popular for the V A. And so instead of doing things to compete more to drive veterans back into quote their market, um they decided to use COVID to reorganize or re energize the monopoly that they had. And so it, it worked, it helped, it wasn't a total solution, but it was a huge step in the right direction in introducing choice. And they, they've worked ever since to undermine it and, and roll it back. So frustrating.
What one of the things that we've talked about we mentioned earlier was community care. Uh talk about community care, what it is, how it, how it helps veterans. So, um and one of the ironic things and I'll get to at the end of the point is that also helps civilians and in rural areas. And I'll explain when we get done.
But community care is um when there's certain criteria that the V A can't meet time and distance being the two biggest, uh there are doctors, there are clinics who just like Medicaid, Medicare and Medicaid who are quote qualified uh to, to see patients. And so that enables a veteran, he can't get an appointment in a certain amount of time he becomes qualified. He goes and sees a doctor, uh, that's in the community, uh that then that doctor is able to build the V A and the V A pays that bill.
Um, same thing for distance. I live in rural west Texas and we had veterans going as far away as Albuquerque, which is an eight hour drive. Um, they would pass many doctors or many hospitals that could see and treat them along the way that simply the V A would, you know, could pay for. So community care is, uh, I think the simplest way to look at it, it's, it's like a Medicaid or Medicare doctor, somebody that's qualified within the system.
And um, the veteran can go see that doctor and how the V A pay the bill. Yeah. And that makes a big difference, right? It just brings a different, uh, there's some accountability to a system like that where a veteran can not just the accountability, but it's, it's choice. It's allowing a veteran to get the care that they want rather than forcing them into a one size fits all.
So, ironically, Jeff, the cost per patient is lower when they use community care than when they use the federal government. So it saves taxpayers dollars. But, but it doesn't allow via bureaucrats to continue to get inflated budgets. Right. And ask for more money and that's the, they're concerned with it. Exactly. Right. And here's the one point I wanted to also make rural health care for civilians, had benefited from this and is now suffering because of it.
When you have, um, a rural area where a doctor has financially, doesn't have quite enough patients to maybe establish a practice there or stay there when veterans aren't being, um, exported 2345 hours away between the veteran patients and the civilian patients and the veteran patients using community care, there's oftentimes enough economic, um, output there to support a doctor or clinic. Um, that isn't normally there.
So it actually has a positive unintended content, uh, not consequence but benefit um to rural civilian patients. You know, it's, it's interesting but quite often that is the case with the free, free enterprise, free markets is that it kind of benefits everybody if you, if you don't have the government skewing the marketplace, okay, you've got under the Biden administration, you've got house the via doing. Are they doing better worse?
What's the feeling on the current Biden administration and the Veterans Affairs, I would say worse and much worse. Um I don't think it's much of a secret that the Biden administration is in love with the idea of socialized healthcare. That was the dream of the Obama administration. I think the uh via administration would like to carry out that dream.
I think one of the things they can't afford to have is for the V A healthcare system be seen as a failure, even if it is a failure, they don't want it to be seen as a failure. And so I think what we're seeing from the Biden administration is they're empowering the V A to withhold documents um out of the documents that we've gotten so far uh from a FPF efforts on Foia, we're noticing about 80% of them are duplicates.
Um the uh meetings we're having with them that the court orders uh the V A to sit down and meet with us. They're, you know, they've been hostile until very recently. They've dragged their feet over and over again. So not only are they undercutting the system, they're trying to hide how they're undercutting the system.
It's so bad that even last year when one, when one republican senator was asking questions, the V A secretary had the audacity to say, well, if you want that information file A foia said that to us, Senator. Oh my goodness. So we are, we are seeing in my belief is the Biden administration is actually enabling and empowering the via administration to um hide the truth as to what they're doing. Now, the Biden administration, what didn't they just sign into law this Pact Act? Um What was that?
Was that good? Tell me about that. Yeah, so that actually through um gasoline on the, on the wait times. Uh So the Pack Act was a big um move to qualify uh folks that were exposed to burn pits. Um, that by itself is not the problem. In fact, we, but it's also not the solution. Um, because if you're sick for any reason, regardless of its burn pit exposure, whatever reason you are sick in line with your, with your service, you qualify for getting via health care.
The problem with the Pack Act is it added probably almost instantaneously. A million new veterans into line, uh, for lines that are already that are too long and they're not getting too in a quick manner. And so what is again, another good intention has not been met with the solution is how we're going to see these new people and we can't do it without weight without community care because the wait lists are just gonna get longer and longer. So good intention, bad implementation.
So what is this administration? It's gotten worse? You believe in allowing veterans to access their health care? They are, they, would you say that they're kind of, this administration is kind of at war with community care. Oh I I would say so. Um it is very clear that they not only want to capture more veterans into the into socialized medicine, they want to use it as the model uh to capture as many civilians down the road as they can.
You keep using that term, which I totally agree with but socialized medicine, I mean, that's essentially what it is, right? That's what the V A system is. It is the only fully socialized medical system in the United States is the V A healthcare system. Yeah. And when we talk about and I'll just point out very quickly when we talk about some of the great amazing sort of transformational moments in, in, in medical history, in medical facilities around the United States, around the world.
We usually talk about private universities, private hospitals, um you know, the mayo clinic or something like that. Uh in the United States, we don't talk about the V A system, do we often times? Um not, but you know, I do wanna make real clear that the V A does deliver some excellent healthcare. Um the problem and think about this. Uh it doesn't matter how great the health care system is. If 90% of your folks can't get to it in time to change their lives.
The difference of what you described on those other high quality um apparatus that we have out there. Uh is that folks have market choices to go from place to place until they can find health care. And so in times that they need to get it quickly, if they can't get to the very best place they want to go to, then go the second best place because there's choice. And so excellence without choice still ends up in tragedy and despair for too many veterans. Yeah. Well, so sad.
And I'm glad that you guys are working on this. Uh, you're doing great work there. What's going on right now? Are you working with Congress? What can be done in this Congress to maybe make better health care for the veterans that are, that are so desperate to have good health care.
One of the things that were really asking people to do is to step up and tell their story to their congressman, uh, that you can get a hold of the veterans, um, uh, Stafford that they have, uh, share your V A uh story with them. Uh We've seen those constituent cases skyrocket and then to advocate for, uh, true choice in veteran health care. So, while you're making that phone call, let them know this is something we need.
And then we have, uh, tens of thousands of activists out there that sign I've all petitions, those are electronic petitions to Congress. They help us make phone calls to go knock on doors for us to advance these policies. Um If you're able to help us at CV for a dot org. Um There are many avenues in which you can volunteer to do that. We're seeing a ton of digital activists who are now sharing uh these via horror stories on their social media post. Um They tweet about them.
Uh they helped grow that awareness. And I think there's two things that were really asking congress to do. One hold the V A accountable for today for what they're, how they're undercutting the law today. And second thing we're asking them is to advance through choice and allow veterans to escape the monopoly that the government has posed on us with socialized healthcare. Um Let's get true competition in, for, for the V A healthcare system. Yeah. Well, listen, those are very noble goals.
Uh And you guys are doing great work, wonderful work really to, to advance this, I mean, from the V A Mission Act and the work that you did to get that passed. But you didn't stop there. Obviously, there's lots more work to be done and you're continuing to do that if people want to get involved with concerned veteran for America and they want to hold the V A accountable, ensure veterans have access to community care. How do they do? How can they get in touch with you and do that?
Yeah. The very first place to go is to CV for A, I'll say it in my, in, in the vernacular, the veteran use. That's Charlie Victor for alpha dot org. Um CV four A dot org there. We have volunteer list sign ups. We have several electronic petitions that can help.
Um We will get, um, either a digital organizer with you or if you live in the area of one of our great field engagement directors, uh, they'll get in contact with you, but I just really want to stress there are multiple ways that people can help. Um, obviously social media is terribly popular right now and it's a great way to help. But there's other more traditional means that, that you can sign up volunteer, help grow this army.
Um There's, we have a lot of veterans who for the first time, never engaged in politics before who have woken up and said, not only do I need to fight for this issue, but I need to fight for freedom and prosperity and choice for my, my brothers and sisters who have never served.
So if you can come join, even if you're not a veteran, you have a loved one or you're just patriotic and you're like, hey, this is what we need to do, um join in the fight and help us grow this army and we can make a real impact on, on many, many issues. Russ. Thanks for joining us. I appreciate you being with us on this episode. Thank you for your service to our country and thanks for your continued service through concerned veterans for America and the great work that you do there.
Again, if you want to learn more about concerned veterans for America, you can go to their website CV, the number four A dot org CV for A dot org and you can learn more. You can also, if you want, I'll get you connected with Rush. You can send me an email. Jeff at American potential dot com. I'll get that along to Russ if you would like to learn more, but I do appreciate you joining me Russ. Okay. Uh Look, thanks for joining us again on this episode.
This is a fight so important that we continue to fight, uh, to get rid of some of these government barriers that are erected, things that the government puts in our way and how great would it be if we could help these veterans who went and you know, answered the call and went out and risked their lives. In, in many cases, we're talking about people who paid a terrible price through conflict through war and you know, they're trying to deal with that.
They just want the best medical care they can possibly get. And we as Americans should all stand up and want them to get the best care they possibly can have if you know of a story that someone is working to expand freedom and perhaps it's a veteran who is trying to find medical care through the V A system or has met up with a barrier that the government has imposed on them. Who to our website, go to American Potential dot com.
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