This Veterans Day, Americans will come together to honor the service, sacrifice and heroism of the millions of brave patriots who have served our nation.
As we celebrate those who fought for our freedoms, we also recognize the tremendous importance of keeping the promises America has made to the men and women who’ve worn the uniform.
For decades, Veterans have been asking for a more efficient, accountable and transparent Department of Veterans Affairs. Under President Trump, we are finally giving them what they want. Here’s how:
Since January, we’ve reviewed virtually every aspect of VA’s operations, and if it wasn’t beneficial to Veterans, families, caregivers and survivors, we started reforming it. Common sense, customer service and convenience are guiding our efforts.
In Joe Biden’s VA, tens of thousands of employees were simply phoning it in from home via telework, so we brought them back to the office, where they can work better as a team. As a result, the department’s performance has improved.
We’ve been working overtime to reduce the number of Veterans waiting for VA benefits, which had ballooned to nearly 265,000 under the previous administration. That number is now down by nearly 50%. Meanwhile, VA’s claims processing productivity is the highest it’s ever been.
Since Jan. 20, we’ve opened 20 new health care clinics, expanding access for Veterans around the country. We’ve also extended operations to offer Veterans more than 1.4 million health care appointments outside of normal hours. These early-morning, evening and weekend appointments are giving Veterans more timely and convenient options for care.
We’re bringing services to Veterans far outside of VA’s walls by making it easier and faster for Veterans to get care from non-VA providers at the department’s expense. In the last administration, this would have required multiple reviews and a reauthorization process tied up in red tape. We’ve changed that to offer Veterans access to community care if it’s in their best medical interest with yearlong authorizations for 30 standardized types of care. We encourage Veterans to speak to their local care teams to understand their community care options.
To provide real relief to grieving dependents dealing with the loss of a deceased Veteran or service member, we created a “white glove” survivor outreach team to help them get the VA services, support and compassion they’ve earned.
We resurrected VA’s integrated electronic health record modernization effort after the last administration left this important project nearly dormant for almost two years. With 13 sites going live in 2026 and full deployment of the system by 2031, the project will bring vast improvements in health care, coordination and convenience for Veterans.
As we’ve made progress making sure the department is focusing on what’s important, we’ve also eliminated a number of costly distractions.
We reviewed tens of thousands of contracts the department had in place, cutting thousands of wasteful and duplicative agreements and redirecting the savings into better care for Veterans, families, caregivers and survivors. This effort and other reforms helped us invest an additional $800 million in infrastructure improvements to ensure VA facilities across the country provide safe and effective patient care.
We effectively ended the practice of taxpayer-funded union time across the department. Under this perverse practice, taxpayers spent nearly $40 million in 2024 for more than 1,900 VA employees to do work on behalf of government unions rather than VA beneficiaries.
In the first week of the second Trump Administration, we stopped the department’s wasteful spending on diversity initiatives, which only divided Veterans and VA staff. The most important identity to us at VA is “Veteran,” and by ending DEI programs, we now have $14 million more to spend on our core constituency.
We started phasing out VA treatments for gender dysphoria, a commonsense step that should have been done years ago. We will continue to serve all eligible Veterans, but VA should not be in the business of helping people try to change their sex, and the vast majority of Americans agree.
This Veterans Day will be my first as VA secretary, and under President Trump’s leadership, I am proud of the work we have done to ensure the department is better serving those who have worn the uniform of our nation.
We are transforming VA from a bureaucratic organization to a service organization, cutting red tape and placing Veterans at the center of everything we do along the way. And we’re just getting started.
