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When I came to Congress two years ago and joined the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, I was cautiously optimistic that lawmakers would put aside their differences to serve the needs of veterans. After all, some Republicans had just broken party ranks to support the PACT Act, a cornerstone law pushed by President Joe Biden that expanded health care to millions of fellow toxic-exposed veterans and their survivors.
Sadly, no dice. The past 18 months on the committee have been marked by dysfunction, division, and a slew of damaging policy proposals. House Republicans used the committee not as a space to come together for veterans, but instead as a battlefield for their right-wing culture war. Too often, the committee became a venue to try to privatize veterans’ health care. My Republican colleagues sided with corporate interests to outsource care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, despite studies indicating that this fee-for-service care falls woefully short of department standards. Worse still, some even tried to slash funding for the Pact Act and renege on the promise of health care for toxic-exposed veterans of…
