7 ms·

Leaked VA memo calls for up to 83,000 layoffs to reduce workforce to 2019 levels

67 points by araes 2y ago

simonsarris 2y ago
It's so difficult to evaluate this stuff from afar. In 2019 there were 399,000 workers. Now 482,000. In 2022, the Biden admin tried to slash 50,000 workers and was stymied, and then the VA hired 61,000 the following year. What's the right number? I'm sure people leaning one way politically will confidently say one thing, though they may have said something else in 2022, and vice versa. I find it hard to have a problem with a plan if its at least partially originating internally, and its hard to say there's no problem if the current and previous administration were both trying to curtail growth.
- apsec112 2y ago
  The PACT Act was a new bipartisan statute, passed in 2022, that expanded the VA's responsibilities and how many people were eligible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honoring_our_PACT_Act_of_2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honoring_our_PACT_Act_of_2022
  - CharlieDigital 2y ago
    I feel like this should be higher because of facts. The PACT Act is perhaps the largest health care and benefit expansion in VA history.[22] The PACT Act brings these changes: - Expands and extends eligibility for VA health care for Veterans with toxic exposures and Veterans of the Vietnam, Gulf War, and post-9/11 eras - Adds 20+ more presumptive conditions for burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic exposures - Adds more presumptive-exposure locations for Agent Orange and radiation - Requires VA to provide a toxic exposure screening to every Veteran enrolled in VA health care - Helps VA improve research, staff education, and treatment related to toxic exposures Literally things that we should do if we are going to send kids off to fight and then expose them to these things.
    - myko 2y ago
      I only have health care now due to the PACT Act. Absolutely pissed about what is happening to the VA now.
      - jajko 2y ago
        This is what happens when people (a lot of veterans/current army personnel, also basically all gun nuts) vote for a guy who very actively avoided serving his country in vietnam war, thanx to nepotism of his uber rich parents. Such person will never hold veterans in high esteem, all people under him are meat bags to use and throw away once not needed and long term care for wounded is expensive, especially in US. Compare it to somebody who actually went through the experience, be it just mandatory draft or actual combat.
- redeux 2y ago
  The primary problem with the VA is not the staffing level, it’s the quality of care and responsiveness. If these additions were put in place address those problems then I’d argue they’re necessary. We made a commitment to our military members when they agreed to the oath of enlistment/office and we aught to live up to that. The VA doesn’t and shouldn’t have unlimited funds but at the same time, cutting personnel without addressing the core problems seems like it’s only going to make things worse for veterans.
  - myko 2y ago
    > it’s the quality of care and responsiveness Both great in my experience, and in my friends I have seen in the VA system. That said, I still hear old veterans bitch about it like it sucks, even as they're completely taken care of and hand held throughout the care process.
    - kstrauser 2y ago
      I'm a vet and so are many of my friends. I expect and demand that the VA honor the pledges it made to them. However, you might be right about some of that. Some of the VA complaints I've heard didn't sound that bad compared to what I've experienced with private insurance and large hospital systems. Which is not to say that it can't be, or shouldn't be, better! It should be, for everyone! But I confess that "I had to argue with the VA to approve my hearing aids" isn't exactly worse than trying to get UnitedHealthcare to pay for an ordered MRI.
- unsnap_biceps 2y ago
  My biggest issue is that the current cuts are not being done with any sort of plan beyond "What can I get away with". Hiring at big organizations is complicated and people are not fungible no matter how much companies like Amazon push them to be. Wanting to slash 50k and hire 61k could make total sense if the overlap of skills is limited or non-existent. I'm pretty left leaning these days, and I'd be fine with cuts, even large cuts around, just with intention and reason behind them. I'm not a fan of the tear it all down that's going on right now.
  - AcerbicZero 2y ago
    I get this vibe, but I also wonder roughly how much intentionality and thought went into hiring these folks in the first place? Kinda seems like when it comes time to hire they're mostly focused on "what can I get away with".
    - unsnap_biceps 2y ago
      Like any large company, this does happen and the fix is the same. You replace someone at the top with a mandate to change the culture and they take hard looks at things and replace at the next level down as needed, and rise and repeat until you've replaced enough folks that the ship has turned around. It takes time, but it's the healthy way to turn the ship. There's nothing special about government employment being any different than private sector.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  I don't think too many people have an issue with the idea of "right sizing" the government. It's an organization meant to achieve goals; there's an approximate number of people needed to do this and anything beyond is waste. What rubs a lot of people the wrong way is an executive branch run by billionaires acting with no constitutional or statutory authority to terminate the employment (and vital benefits that come with it) of tens of thousands of ordinary people without any real consideration for the institutional knowledge being lost, all in the name of "efficiency" and "cost savings", while the people in the executive branch have far more value than they could have ever produced in a human lifetime, and stand to benefit the most from such destruction.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
jorblumesea 2y ago
Ignoring the obvious humanitarian aspect of it (veteran suicide rate, societal promises of healthcare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honoring_our_PACT_Act_of_2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honoring_our_PACT_Act_of_2022), politically you have to wonder why do this. Vets usually vote conservative, are often employed by the VA. It's an economically unstable time with other administration policies like tariffs. It won't reduce the deficit by any significant %. VA hospitals are often a source of general healthcare to fill gaps in the system.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  "Government doesn't work. Here, we'll prove it." Ever since Reagan said "I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." there's been a cadre of monied business interests who want to replace all government with "private" services, basically making themselves the new royal families of the US.
  - hello_moto 2y ago
    > the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help That pretty much sums up the difference between USA vs the rest of Western countries. In the US, People are protecting themselves from their own Government. Other Western Countries, The Government is there to protect the people (and the people understand this).
    - jakeogh 2y ago
      ... until they outlaw silent prayer?
      - lenerdenator 2y ago
        Seems hard to enforce, no?
        2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hello_moto 2y ago
The Administration actions are all to fund the $4.5 trillion tax cut. * DOGE - Cut Expenses * Tariff - Bring Revenue (another form of Tax, the victimized countries can't/don't influence USA politics); this is essentially Sales/VAT Tax without being said as Sales/VAT Tax. * Cutting Aids - Cut Expenses * Ukraine - Cut Expenses They're looking for all avenue to fund $4.5 trillion tax cut for the Billionaires. That is the main logic and reason behind all these moves, not the smoke and mirror they said to the media.
- hypeatei 2y ago
  That's not the main reason either, actually. There is no way that you're going to find $4.5T in "waste, fraud, and abuse" unless you consider anything you don't like as that. What they're really doing is handicapping as much as possible to make government appear inept so that they can come in and privatize.
  - hello_moto 2y ago
    They don't really care if the end result is to make Govt inept for privatization. If that happened, good, otherwise, the Rich will still get their tax cut. No matter what, The Rich wins.
- dnissley 2y ago
  Yeah all these cuts could be reasonable steps towards financial responsibility. Provided they put the savings towards funding future liabilities and paying off debt. Unfortunately that won't happen and we'll basically be in the same bad financial position as before, if not worse.
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    > Provided they put the savings towards funding future liabilities and paying off debt. This is me laughing bitterly. We know darn well that's not what'll happen.
- xnx 2y ago
  The goal is to rhetorically balance the "savings" from firing people with the additional giveaways to the rich to a low numeracy audience. The deficit and debt will continue to increase, but at least we will also get a recession.
blindriver 2y ago
Holy hell, they hired 83,000 people since 2019? Does no one care we are $36T in debt? 40% of our income taxes go to paying just the interest on our debt!
- ravedave5 2y ago
  Neither side cares we are in debt, see the spending plan put forth.
- stonogo 2y ago
  The PACT act increased the number of veterans eligible for VA health care by hundreds of thousands. Additionally, I question whether attacking the VA's budget, which in its entirety is less than four percent of government spending, is the place to start looking for efficiencies, especially since nearly three percent of the spending budget is unreported.
- mystraline 2y ago
  Who are we in debt TO?
  - duck 2y ago
    Looking at this the other day and found this helpful: https://www.pgpf.org/article/the-federal-government-has-borrowed-trillions-but-who-owns-all-that-debt/ https://www.pgpf.org/article/the-federal-government-has-borr...
- mindslight 2y ago
  These days I just assume that anybody driving focus to the "debt" and specifically "paying interest on the debt" has no idea what they're talking about. Write it on the blackboard 50 times: the budget of a sovereign nation issuing a reserve currency is not analogous to household finances! As a follower of Austrian economics, monetary creation by the government most certainly does matter. But this myopic focus on "debt" completely hides the actual separate dynamics like domestic people/institutions parking their savings, foreign entities buying treasuries for longer term stability, or the political martingale of accounting for legislative monetary creation as paper "debt" to the Federal Reserve. The current cries about government spending are basically aiming at killing the goose that lays golden eggs because some people got frustrated by having to spend some of the proceeds of selling the eggs on the goose's own feed.
AcerbicZero 2y ago
Hard to say how this will actually go but as a vet, I've had some pretty poor experiences with the government support networks as a whole, and the VA is no exception; I know the VA has improved from the horror days of 03-06 but it certainly feels like it could have done so much more, especially after we got out of Iraq and the overall operation tempo dropped. I have friends who were hurt 15+ years ago now, and have been through the ups and downs of the VA system; its just sad that after all that time they're still struggling (occasionally at least) with basic things and keeping their care going.
- tylerflick 2y ago
  I haven’t found it any worse than many private health systems. The one thing the VA has going for it, is it’s a single medical network. I’ve only seen this replicated elsewhere at Kaiser.

67 points by araes 2y ago

It's so difficult to evaluate this stuff from afar. In 2019 there were 399,000 workers. Now 482,000. In 2022, the Biden admin tried to slash 50,000 workers and was stymied, and then the VA hired 61,000 the following year. What's the right number? I'm sure people leaning one way politically will confidently say one thing, though they may have said something else in 2022, and vice versa. I find it hard to have a problem with a plan if its at least partially originating internally, and its hard to say there's no problem if the current and previous administration were both trying to curtail growth.

apsec112 2y ago
The PACT Act was a new bipartisan statute, passed in 2022, that expanded the VA's responsibilities and how many people were eligible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honoring_our_PACT_Act_of_2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honoring_our_PACT_Act_of_2022
- CharlieDigital 2y ago
  I feel like this should be higher because of facts. The PACT Act is perhaps the largest health care and benefit expansion in VA history.[22] The PACT Act brings these changes: - Expands and extends eligibility for VA health care for Veterans with toxic exposures and Veterans of the Vietnam, Gulf War, and post-9/11 eras - Adds 20+ more presumptive conditions for burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic exposures - Adds more presumptive-exposure locations for Agent Orange and radiation - Requires VA to provide a toxic exposure screening to every Veteran enrolled in VA health care - Helps VA improve research, staff education, and treatment related to toxic exposures Literally things that we should do if we are going to send kids off to fight and then expose them to these things.
  - myko 2y ago
    I only have health care now due to the PACT Act. Absolutely pissed about what is happening to the VA now.
    - jajko 2y ago
      This is what happens when people (a lot of veterans/current army personnel, also basically all gun nuts) vote for a guy who very actively avoided serving his country in vietnam war, thanx to nepotism of his uber rich parents. Such person will never hold veterans in high esteem, all people under him are meat bags to use and throw away once not needed and long term care for wounded is expensive, especially in US. Compare it to somebody who actually went through the experience, be it just mandatory draft or actual combat.
redeux 2y ago
The primary problem with the VA is not the staffing level, it’s the quality of care and responsiveness. If these additions were put in place address those problems then I’d argue they’re necessary. We made a commitment to our military members when they agreed to the oath of enlistment/office and we aught to live up to that. The VA doesn’t and shouldn’t have unlimited funds but at the same time, cutting personnel without addressing the core problems seems like it’s only going to make things worse for veterans.
- myko 2y ago
  > it’s the quality of care and responsiveness Both great in my experience, and in my friends I have seen in the VA system. That said, I still hear old veterans bitch about it like it sucks, even as they're completely taken care of and hand held throughout the care process.
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    I'm a vet and so are many of my friends. I expect and demand that the VA honor the pledges it made to them. However, you might be right about some of that. Some of the VA complaints I've heard didn't sound that bad compared to what I've experienced with private insurance and large hospital systems. Which is not to say that it can't be, or shouldn't be, better! It should be, for everyone! But I confess that "I had to argue with the VA to approve my hearing aids" isn't exactly worse than trying to get UnitedHealthcare to pay for an ordered MRI.
unsnap_biceps 2y ago
My biggest issue is that the current cuts are not being done with any sort of plan beyond "What can I get away with". Hiring at big organizations is complicated and people are not fungible no matter how much companies like Amazon push them to be. Wanting to slash 50k and hire 61k could make total sense if the overlap of skills is limited or non-existent. I'm pretty left leaning these days, and I'd be fine with cuts, even large cuts around, just with intention and reason behind them. I'm not a fan of the tear it all down that's going on right now.
- AcerbicZero 2y ago
  I get this vibe, but I also wonder roughly how much intentionality and thought went into hiring these folks in the first place? Kinda seems like when it comes time to hire they're mostly focused on "what can I get away with".
  - unsnap_biceps 2y ago
    Like any large company, this does happen and the fix is the same. You replace someone at the top with a mandate to change the culture and they take hard looks at things and replace at the next level down as needed, and rise and repeat until you've replaced enough folks that the ship has turned around. It takes time, but it's the healthy way to turn the ship. There's nothing special about government employment being any different than private sector.
lenerdenator 2y ago
I don't think too many people have an issue with the idea of "right sizing" the government. It's an organization meant to achieve goals; there's an approximate number of people needed to do this and anything beyond is waste. What rubs a lot of people the wrong way is an executive branch run by billionaires acting with no constitutional or statutory authority to terminate the employment (and vital benefits that come with it) of tens of thousands of ordinary people without any real consideration for the institutional knowledge being lost, all in the name of "efficiency" and "cost savings", while the people in the executive branch have far more value than they could have ever produced in a human lifetime, and stand to benefit the most from such destruction.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

jorblumesea 2y ago

Ignoring the obvious humanitarian aspect of it (veteran suicide rate, societal promises of healthcare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honoring_our_PACT_Act_of_2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honoring_our_PACT_Act_of_2022), politically you have to wonder why do this. Vets usually vote conservative, are often employed by the VA. It's an economically unstable time with other administration policies like tariffs. It won't reduce the deficit by any significant %. VA hospitals are often a source of general healthcare to fill gaps in the system.

lenerdenator 2y ago
"Government doesn't work. Here, we'll prove it." Ever since Reagan said "I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." there's been a cadre of monied business interests who want to replace all government with "private" services, basically making themselves the new royal families of the US.
- hello_moto 2y ago
  > the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help That pretty much sums up the difference between USA vs the rest of Western countries. In the US, People are protecting themselves from their own Government. Other Western Countries, The Government is there to protect the people (and the people understand this).
  - jakeogh 2y ago
    ... until they outlaw silent prayer?
    - lenerdenator 2y ago
      Seems hard to enforce, no?
      - 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

hello_moto 2y ago

The Administration actions are all to fund the $4.5 trillion tax cut. * DOGE - Cut Expenses * Tariff - Bring Revenue (another form of Tax, the victimized countries can't/don't influence USA politics); this is essentially Sales/VAT Tax without being said as Sales/VAT Tax. * Cutting Aids - Cut Expenses * Ukraine - Cut Expenses They're looking for all avenue to fund $4.5 trillion tax cut for the Billionaires. That is the main logic and reason behind all these moves, not the smoke and mirror they said to the media.

hypeatei 2y ago
That's not the main reason either, actually. There is no way that you're going to find $4.5T in "waste, fraud, and abuse" unless you consider anything you don't like as that. What they're really doing is handicapping as much as possible to make government appear inept so that they can come in and privatize.
- hello_moto 2y ago
  They don't really care if the end result is to make Govt inept for privatization. If that happened, good, otherwise, the Rich will still get their tax cut. No matter what, The Rich wins.
dnissley 2y ago
Yeah all these cuts could be reasonable steps towards financial responsibility. Provided they put the savings towards funding future liabilities and paying off debt. Unfortunately that won't happen and we'll basically be in the same bad financial position as before, if not worse.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  > Provided they put the savings towards funding future liabilities and paying off debt. This is me laughing bitterly. We know darn well that's not what'll happen.
xnx 2y ago
The goal is to rhetorically balance the "savings" from firing people with the additional giveaways to the rich to a low numeracy audience. The deficit and debt will continue to increase, but at least we will also get a recession.

blindriver 2y ago

Holy hell, they hired 83,000 people since 2019? Does no one care we are $36T in debt? 40% of our income taxes go to paying just the interest on our debt!

ravedave5 2y ago
Neither side cares we are in debt, see the spending plan put forth.
stonogo 2y ago
The PACT act increased the number of veterans eligible for VA health care by hundreds of thousands. Additionally, I question whether attacking the VA's budget, which in its entirety is less than four percent of government spending, is the place to start looking for efficiencies, especially since nearly three percent of the spending budget is unreported.
mystraline 2y ago
Who are we in debt TO?
- duck 2y ago
  Looking at this the other day and found this helpful: https://www.pgpf.org/article/the-federal-government-has-borrowed-trillions-but-who-owns-all-that-debt/ https://www.pgpf.org/article/the-federal-government-has-borr...
mindslight 2y ago
These days I just assume that anybody driving focus to the "debt" and specifically "paying interest on the debt" has no idea what they're talking about. Write it on the blackboard 50 times: the budget of a sovereign nation issuing a reserve currency is not analogous to household finances! As a follower of Austrian economics, monetary creation by the government most certainly does matter. But this myopic focus on "debt" completely hides the actual separate dynamics like domestic people/institutions parking their savings, foreign entities buying treasuries for longer term stability, or the political martingale of accounting for legislative monetary creation as paper "debt" to the Federal Reserve. The current cries about government spending are basically aiming at killing the goose that lays golden eggs because some people got frustrated by having to spend some of the proceeds of selling the eggs on the goose's own feed.

AcerbicZero 2y ago

Hard to say how this will actually go but as a vet, I've had some pretty poor experiences with the government support networks as a whole, and the VA is no exception; I know the VA has improved from the horror days of 03-06 but it certainly feels like it could have done so much more, especially after we got out of Iraq and the overall operation tempo dropped. I have friends who were hurt 15+ years ago now, and have been through the ups and downs of the VA system; its just sad that after all that time they're still struggling (occasionally at least) with basic things and keeping their care going.

tylerflick 2y ago
I haven’t found it any worse than many private health systems. The one thing the VA has going for it, is it’s a single medical network. I’ve only seen this replicated elsewhere at Kaiser.