President Donald Trump’s policies are causing doctors to turn down job offers in Veterans Affairs hospitals, a new report has revealed. Simultaneously, the administration is engaging in anti-union actions in the veterans health care system and Democratic lawmakers say veterans will ultimately suffer.
ProPublica reported on Friday that a new analysis of hiring at VA hospitals since Trump took office shows that doctors are rejecting job offers. Of the roughly 2,000 doctors who were offered jobs between January and March, nearly 40% turned down the offer. That turndown rate is a 400% increase from a year ago when former President Joe Biden was in office.
ProPublica also revealed that doctors and nurses already in the system are leaving. Every month that Trump has been in office has seen a decline in doctors employed by the VA. Between January and June, twice as many nurses left the VA system as have been hired.
The brain drain is occurring at the same time that the administration is focused on slashing the agency’s workforce.
Under Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, a longtime Trump cheerleader and apologist when he served in Congress, the administration has pursued significant cuts. The agency announced on Thursday that it is on pace to cut 30,000 jobs by the end of the 2025 fiscal year.
“This announcement makes clear VA is bleeding employees across the board at an unsustainable rate because of the toxic work environment created by this Administration and DOGE’s slash and trash policies,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, (D-CT) ranking member of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, said in a statement.
ProPublica noted in its report that wait times have increased for patients seeking primary and specialty care, along with wait times for outpatient surgery and appointments.
Collins also announced this week that the agency is terminating collective bargaining agreements for more than 350,000 unionized employees. Democrats slammed the action as another attack on veteran care.
“While Secretary Collins tries to spin this horrific VA decision to terminate union contracts for most bargaining-unit VA employees, we see it for what it is—a politically motivated attack on VA employees’ rights, power, and autonomy,” Democrats on the House Veterans’ Affairs committee said in a joint release.
Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley said the action was “shameful,” while Illinois Rep. Delia Ramirez said it “puts veterans’ care at risk and was “unacceptable.”
Trump has long expressed hostility to service members and infamously referred to them as “suckers” and “losers.” While he’s more than happy to use a military anniversary as an excuse for a birthday parade for himself, he has been happy to attack and degrade the health care they desperately need.