Project 2025 Could Affect Veterans
September 09, 2024
Project 2025 has raised many questions due to its proposed VA review process changes. Veterans wonder what will happen to their benefits if the proposal is accepted. Many are concerned about how the proposal plans to change the evaluation of disabilities drastically. Others worry how the plan would change the Department itself.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project
The project’s creators, The Heritage Foundation, have previously been involved in veterans’ benefits. They proposed the Budget Blueprint for Fiscal Year 2023, which desired to cut veterans benefits of less severe disabilities. The goal was to eliminate VA patients who were not veterans and give those benefits to the veterans who needed them.
Inspired by this proposal, Project 2025 states it will achieve victory through “policy, personnel, and training”. It intends to increase the speed at which the VA reviews disability ratings. The proposal hopes to achieve this by increasing employee training on Conservative Governance.
Although faster reviews would be great, there’s a catch. The proposal would cut VA benefits from many current medical conditions. While not specified, conditions “tenuously related or wholly unrelated to military service” would be removed from benefits. Veterans currently receiving benefits are likely to see a reduction and others may be cut off from receiving compensation entirely if their condition is no longer linked to military service.
The proposal also stated that in recent years, service-connected conditions related to Agent Orange & Burn Pits, as well as the PACT ACT have led to historic increases in VBA spending. Since Project 2025’s goal is to cut spending, veterans with conditions related to these high-budget items worry about losing their benefits.
Health and Medical Care
Veterans who rely on VA healthcare need to be aware of what changes might be coming. The project is planning to “rescind all departmental clinical policy directives that are contrary to principles of conservative governance starting with abortion services and gender reassignment surgery”. Explaining that “neither aligns with service-connected conditions”, and therefore would not warrant any VA care.
The proposal hopes to help with expenses relating to medical care by revising Community Care. Ensuring all veterans know when/if they are eligible for Community Care. The revision will also halt increases in Community Care. This will assist with costs due to duplicate testing and client confusion between VA and community providers. However, this may reduce care for veterans living in rural areas.
Project 2025 wants to keep an eye on the VA healthcare system. There is concern about its ability to reach quality, safety, patient experience, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness standards. The proposal demands that VA publicly report on its abilities in the same way Medicare must.
Workforce Changes
Personnel is one of the four pillars Project 2025 stands on. Throughout the departments, the proposal calls for changes in the workforce: “Recruiting a more relevantly knowledgeable and technologically savvy team, could bring about better solutions to the VBA’s workflow challenges”. Although there is merit to this, veterans fear for their job safety; over 30% of the federal workforce are veterans. If this proposal goes through, it’s estimated that over 1 million veterans could lose their jobs due to budget cuts, elimination/ privatization of agencies, hiring freezes, and personnel caps.
With concerns rising over veterans’ benefits, Legal Help For Veterans, PLLC aspires to assist veterans in obtaining the service-related benefits they deserve. If you are a veteran struggling with your VA disability claim, submit a Free Claim Evaluation or call our office at (800) 693-4800.