VA Secretary Visits VFW Headquarters to Discuss Veterans’ Concerns

The state of VA health care was the hot topic of today’s meeting

Kansas City, Mo. (October 29, 2015) — Today, Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald visited the VFW National Headquarters in Kansas City where he met with VFW officials to discuss a host of important veterans’ issues to include the state of the VA health care system, the claims backlog and veterans employment.

The meeting with VFW officials comes just weeks after the VFW released its latest VA health care report entitled “Our Care,” an analysis of veterans’ options, preferences and expectations in health care. The report concluded that while veterans who are eligible for VA health care choose to use VA health care, even if they have other health care coverage options in the community, the VA continues to face problems in consistency of customer experience and delivering quality customer service. While progress has been made since the VA debacle of 2014, wait times and the backlog are still overarching concerns to veterans and the national narrative remains overwhelmingly negative.

“Secretary McDonald understands that the VA still has a long road ahead of it to fully regain the trust of America’s veterans,” said John E. Hamilton, VFW adjutant general and three-time Purple Heart recipient. “Many veterans feel the system failed them, America failed them, and today’s discussion was focused on how we can continue to move forward and make progress toward a better system for veterans.”

Also during the meeting, the secretary was briefed on the VFW’s veterans’ employment initiatives and its transition assistance initiatives.