Fwd: A VA Health Record Debacle, Updates on the Take Care of America's Veterans Act, and a Collection of Commentary about the VA
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Nancy Anthracite
Jul 30, 2026, 6:21:37 AM (4 days ago) Jul 30
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Nancy Anthracite
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Subject: A VA Health Record Debacle, Updates on the Take Care of America's
Veterans Act, and a Collection of Commentary about the VA
Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 3:00:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: VeteransPolicy <Veteran...@96030861.mailchimpapp.com>
To: nanth...@earthlink.net
https://www.veteranspolicy.org
Hi Friends,
This week, VHPI presents a rundown by Edward Francis Meagher on VA’s new
Electronic Health Record Systems, an update on the Take Care of America’s
Veterans Act, Suzanne Gordon’s new book, and more.
Thank you for your continued support!
** New Report on Electronic Health Record Debacle
------------------------------------------------------------
VHPI has just released a comprehensive policy paper (https://
static1.squarespace.com/static/68a3a7a086f56252a95e0de0/t/
6a5e4865f6dc353ab6dff7d0/1784563813258/EHRReport_v2.pdf) on the problematic
and costly rollout of VA’s new electronic health record, developed by the
private software behemoth Cerner. The report was written by Edward Francis
Meagher, whose extensive IT career in the public and private sectors spans
more than four decades.
As Meagher notes, the Cerner product was primarily developed to serve the goal
of revenue maximization in for-profit private sector healthcare systems. By
contrast, the VA’s legendary in-house program, Vista, was developed by VA
clinicians to meet the healthcare needs of VA’s 9 million veteran enrollees,
their caregivers, and staff through seamless information sharing across both
the Veterans Health Administration and the Veterans Benefits Administration. It
also facilitates the VA’s Congressionally mandated teaching, research, and
emergency preparedness missions.
These vital services are jeopardized by the rollout of the Cerner product,
which has been plagued by unresolved, and perhaps unresolvable, problems. The
initial rollout, in six small clinical facilities, has caused significant harm
to veterans, demoralized its clinical workforce, and consumed tens of billions
of taxpayer dollars. Despite this, VA leaders are determined to deploy the
record in 13 new facilities this year, many of them large, complex medical
centers.
Read Meagher’s urgent analysis (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/
68a3a7a086f56252a95e0de0/t/6a5e4865f6dc353ab6dff7d0/1784563813258/
EHRReport_v2.pdf)
** Update on Damaging VA Bill
------------------------------------------------------------
On July 16, Republican leadership pulled the Take Care of America’s Veterans
Act from the House floor just before a final vote.
As VHPI has previously reported (https://prospect.org/2026/06/18/veterans-va-health-care-republicans-take-care-americas-veterans-act-project-2025-trump/) ,
the bill’s authors disguised a devastating benefits cut as a benefits expansion,
betting that a handful of genuinely popular provisions —especially the Major
Richard Star Act — would be enough cover to ram through a financing mechanism
that would have reduced disability compensation for up to 1.5 million future
veterans by an estimated $57 billion over a decade. This is the same sleight
of hand Republicans tried, and failed, to pull during the run-up to the PACT
Act.
The bill's removal from the floor was a major victory for membership-based
veterans’ groups. Since then, though, developments have not been reassuring.
Democrats who opposed the bill are now signaling interest in joining
Republicans to pass it in full this year, provided an alternative funding
mechanism is found that doesn’t reduce veterans’ disability compensation.
Still, a lingering provision in the bill—framed as an expansion of rural
healthcare—would take a sledgehammer to VA's role as authorizer of community
care, the foundation on which the entire enterprise rests. Even accounting for
the bill’s positive elements, the net effect of this turbocharged privatization
would ultimately be a huge loss for veterans.
VHPI will remain vigilant over the bill’s next steps. We urge you to be, as
well.
** New Book from VHPI Co-Founder
------------------------------------------------------------
On August 9, VHPI co-founder and senior policy analyst Suzanne Gordon will
publish a new book with journalist and labor activist Steve Early called
Courage or Complicity: How Veterans are Responding to the Assault on
Democracy.
It’s a timely collection of essays, reviews, and commentaries about the VA,
which includes investigative reporting jointly sponsored by VHPI and The
American Prospect on the adverse impact of VA privatization. The co-authors
report on how veterans, their caregivers, and other federal agency employees,
plus vets in private sector unions, are defending VA care, workers’ rights,
undocumented immigrants, American democracy, and peace in the world. The book
is dedicated to VA nurse Alex Pretti, who was murdered during anti-ICE
protests in Minneapolis last winter.
You can order your paperback copy here (https://pmpress.org/index.php?
l=product_detail&p=2149l=product_detail&p=2149) . To place bulk orders at
discount rates, contact ste...@pmpress.org. Also, this summer and fall, the
authors are doing a series of book- related events—in Boston, Chicago,
Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, upstate and downstate New York,
Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Detroit. Some tour stops will be fund-
raisers for veterans groups. One event – soon to be announced — will be a Bay
Area fundraiser for VHPI. Details on these events here. Please contact Steve
and Suzanne directly at Lsup...@aol.com if you would like to help set up a
virtual or in-person discussion of the book in your own community.
Reviewers of the book are also needed—so volunteer today. Either by posting
reader comments on Amazon (after ordering from PM!) or writing about Courage
or Complicity for your labor or veterans organization newsletter, personal
blog, or other media outlet. Here’s a sample review (https://beyondchron.org/
new-book-highlights-veterans-fighting-back/) by Beyond Chron editor and
publisher Randy Shaw, a valued friend and supporter of VHPI.
In 2023, VHPI Reporting Fellow Jasper Craven undertook the first investigative
project (https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/05/veterans-disability-benefits-brian-reese-va-claims-insider/) on so-called “Claim Sharks,” unaccredited
agents that often charge thousands for services that are provided for free by
county veterans service offices and veterans service organizations such as the
Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, and the American Legion.
They are not required to adhere to the same professional and ethical standards
as accredited representatives. Many are poorly trained to help a veteran
navigate the intricate rules and regulations concerning veterans’ benefits,
providing bad information that leads veterans to see their earned benefits
unfairly denied.
The firm Craven investigated was successfully sued by the Texas Attorney
General. Now another major firm, Trajector, has filed for bankruptcy. Trajector
had at least 40 subsidiaries, including law firms, with annual revenue
estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The move comes as various
states clamp down on illicit claims activity, while federal officials, spurred
on by advocacy from the VFW and other organizations, pledge to protect
veterans’ benefits into the future.
Read here at the Texas Tribune (https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/05/
veterans-disability-benefits-brian-reese-va-claims-insider/)
** New Piece on Graham Platner
------------------------------------------------------------
Last year, a cadre of progressive operatives scoured Maine in search of a
perfect challenger to Senator Susan Collins. They found Graham Platner, an
oyster farmer and political neophyte whose electoral career consisted of a
single term on his hometown’s planning board. “They liked him,” his mother,
Leslie Harlow, recently told me, “because he was a veteran.”
Platner’s mother has a more conflicted perspective. That’s because she’s seen
the darkness and self-destruction that have plagued her son since he joined
the Marine Corps at 19. In fact, she is most proud of the hard work Platner
has put into healing from his four deployments. “People just don’t get it,”
she said. “Everybody just, sort of, can’t deal with what the military really
is.”
In his run for U.S Senate, Platner faced allegations of infidelity and sexual
assault, as well as a litany of racist, misogynist, and nihilistic Reddit
posts and a skull and crossbones tattoo with Nazi provenance that Platner
swears he and some Marine buddies had ignorantly inked during a drunken night
out in Croatia. In the media firestorms that followed, some accused Platner of
being inherently hateful and violent. In the words of one online critic, he
was “a monster that was born, not made.”
In a new piece for The New Yorker, VHPI Reporting Fellow Jasper Craven
examines Platner’s transformations – from boy to troop, and then from troop to
civilian – to clarify the destructive effects of military service, the
wrenching challenges of reintegration into civilian life, and the VA’s vital
healing role, including for Platner, who entered the system for care in 2017.
Read his piece here. (https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/the-complications-of-graham-platners-veteran-identity)
Join our friends at Veterans For Peace for an in-person and virtual convention
with community organizers and activists as we organize, reflect, and build the
future of a movement at a time when repression continues to rise, and war
profiteers continue to harm. VFP’s Peace Through Nonviolent Action: From Chaos
to Community (https://vfpconvention.org/convention-schedule/) will include:
* Discussions from organizers and powerful labor organizers who joined the
international Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza and from a professor of Labor and
History from Cornell;
* Discussions from Indigenous activists about the history of white colonialism
and imperialism that has been destroying their land and people on this
continent and continues its path in Gaza, the West Bank, Iran, Lebanon;
* Engagement with VFP members working on veterans’ healthcare, active-duty
outreach, migrant and student defense, the Climate Crisis, and anti-militarism
actions
VHPI’s Executive Director Oscar Arbulu will join VFP Vice President and other
experts on a panel discussing saving the Veterans Administration.
2026 VFP National Convention Registration (https://
action.veteransforpeace.org/a/vfp-2026-convention-registration)
Nancy Anthracite
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Subject: A VA Health Record Debacle, Updates on the Take Care of America's
Veterans Act, and a Collection of Commentary about the VA
Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 3:00:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: VeteransPolicy <Veteran...@96030861.mailchimpapp.com>
To: nanth...@earthlink.net
https://www.veteranspolicy.org
Hi Friends,
This week, VHPI presents a rundown by Edward Francis Meagher on VA’s new
Electronic Health Record Systems, an update on the Take Care of America’s
Veterans Act, Suzanne Gordon’s new book, and more.
Thank you for your continued support!
** New Report on Electronic Health Record Debacle
------------------------------------------------------------
VHPI has just released a comprehensive policy paper (https://
static1.squarespace.com/static/68a3a7a086f56252a95e0de0/t/
6a5e4865f6dc353ab6dff7d0/1784563813258/EHRReport_v2.pdf) on the problematic
and costly rollout of VA’s new electronic health record, developed by the
private software behemoth Cerner. The report was written by Edward Francis
Meagher, whose extensive IT career in the public and private sectors spans
more than four decades.
As Meagher notes, the Cerner product was primarily developed to serve the goal
of revenue maximization in for-profit private sector healthcare systems. By
contrast, the VA’s legendary in-house program, Vista, was developed by VA
clinicians to meet the healthcare needs of VA’s 9 million veteran enrollees,
their caregivers, and staff through seamless information sharing across both
the Veterans Health Administration and the Veterans Benefits Administration. It
also facilitates the VA’s Congressionally mandated teaching, research, and
emergency preparedness missions.
These vital services are jeopardized by the rollout of the Cerner product,
which has been plagued by unresolved, and perhaps unresolvable, problems. The
initial rollout, in six small clinical facilities, has caused significant harm
to veterans, demoralized its clinical workforce, and consumed tens of billions
of taxpayer dollars. Despite this, VA leaders are determined to deploy the
record in 13 new facilities this year, many of them large, complex medical
centers.
Read Meagher’s urgent analysis (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/
68a3a7a086f56252a95e0de0/t/6a5e4865f6dc353ab6dff7d0/1784563813258/
EHRReport_v2.pdf)
** Update on Damaging VA Bill
------------------------------------------------------------
On July 16, Republican leadership pulled the Take Care of America’s Veterans
Act from the House floor just before a final vote.
As VHPI has previously reported (https://prospect.org/2026/06/18/veterans-va-health-care-republicans-take-care-americas-veterans-act-project-2025-trump/) ,
the bill’s authors disguised a devastating benefits cut as a benefits expansion,
betting that a handful of genuinely popular provisions —especially the Major
Richard Star Act — would be enough cover to ram through a financing mechanism
that would have reduced disability compensation for up to 1.5 million future
veterans by an estimated $57 billion over a decade. This is the same sleight
of hand Republicans tried, and failed, to pull during the run-up to the PACT
Act.
The bill's removal from the floor was a major victory for membership-based
veterans’ groups. Since then, though, developments have not been reassuring.
Democrats who opposed the bill are now signaling interest in joining
Republicans to pass it in full this year, provided an alternative funding
mechanism is found that doesn’t reduce veterans’ disability compensation.
Still, a lingering provision in the bill—framed as an expansion of rural
healthcare—would take a sledgehammer to VA's role as authorizer of community
care, the foundation on which the entire enterprise rests. Even accounting for
the bill’s positive elements, the net effect of this turbocharged privatization
would ultimately be a huge loss for veterans.
VHPI will remain vigilant over the bill’s next steps. We urge you to be, as
well.
** New Book from VHPI Co-Founder
------------------------------------------------------------
On August 9, VHPI co-founder and senior policy analyst Suzanne Gordon will
publish a new book with journalist and labor activist Steve Early called
Courage or Complicity: How Veterans are Responding to the Assault on
Democracy.
It’s a timely collection of essays, reviews, and commentaries about the VA,
which includes investigative reporting jointly sponsored by VHPI and The
American Prospect on the adverse impact of VA privatization. The co-authors
report on how veterans, their caregivers, and other federal agency employees,
plus vets in private sector unions, are defending VA care, workers’ rights,
undocumented immigrants, American democracy, and peace in the world. The book
is dedicated to VA nurse Alex Pretti, who was murdered during anti-ICE
protests in Minneapolis last winter.
You can order your paperback copy here (https://pmpress.org/index.php?
l=product_detail&p=2149l=product_detail&p=2149) . To place bulk orders at
discount rates, contact ste...@pmpress.org. Also, this summer and fall, the
authors are doing a series of book- related events—in Boston, Chicago,
Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, upstate and downstate New York,
Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Detroit. Some tour stops will be fund-
raisers for veterans groups. One event – soon to be announced — will be a Bay
Area fundraiser for VHPI. Details on these events here. Please contact Steve
and Suzanne directly at Lsup...@aol.com if you would like to help set up a
virtual or in-person discussion of the book in your own community.
Reviewers of the book are also needed—so volunteer today. Either by posting
reader comments on Amazon (after ordering from PM!) or writing about Courage
or Complicity for your labor or veterans organization newsletter, personal
blog, or other media outlet. Here’s a sample review (https://beyondchron.org/
new-book-highlights-veterans-fighting-back/) by Beyond Chron editor and
publisher Randy Shaw, a valued friend and supporter of VHPI.
In 2023, VHPI Reporting Fellow Jasper Craven undertook the first investigative
project (https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/05/veterans-disability-benefits-brian-reese-va-claims-insider/) on so-called “Claim Sharks,” unaccredited
agents that often charge thousands for services that are provided for free by
county veterans service offices and veterans service organizations such as the
Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, and the American Legion.
They are not required to adhere to the same professional and ethical standards
as accredited representatives. Many are poorly trained to help a veteran
navigate the intricate rules and regulations concerning veterans’ benefits,
providing bad information that leads veterans to see their earned benefits
unfairly denied.
The firm Craven investigated was successfully sued by the Texas Attorney
General. Now another major firm, Trajector, has filed for bankruptcy. Trajector
had at least 40 subsidiaries, including law firms, with annual revenue
estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The move comes as various
states clamp down on illicit claims activity, while federal officials, spurred
on by advocacy from the VFW and other organizations, pledge to protect
veterans’ benefits into the future.
Read here at the Texas Tribune (https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/05/
veterans-disability-benefits-brian-reese-va-claims-insider/)
** New Piece on Graham Platner
------------------------------------------------------------
Last year, a cadre of progressive operatives scoured Maine in search of a
perfect challenger to Senator Susan Collins. They found Graham Platner, an
oyster farmer and political neophyte whose electoral career consisted of a
single term on his hometown’s planning board. “They liked him,” his mother,
Leslie Harlow, recently told me, “because he was a veteran.”
Platner’s mother has a more conflicted perspective. That’s because she’s seen
the darkness and self-destruction that have plagued her son since he joined
the Marine Corps at 19. In fact, she is most proud of the hard work Platner
has put into healing from his four deployments. “People just don’t get it,”
she said. “Everybody just, sort of, can’t deal with what the military really
is.”
In his run for U.S Senate, Platner faced allegations of infidelity and sexual
assault, as well as a litany of racist, misogynist, and nihilistic Reddit
posts and a skull and crossbones tattoo with Nazi provenance that Platner
swears he and some Marine buddies had ignorantly inked during a drunken night
out in Croatia. In the media firestorms that followed, some accused Platner of
being inherently hateful and violent. In the words of one online critic, he
was “a monster that was born, not made.”
In a new piece for The New Yorker, VHPI Reporting Fellow Jasper Craven
examines Platner’s transformations – from boy to troop, and then from troop to
civilian – to clarify the destructive effects of military service, the
wrenching challenges of reintegration into civilian life, and the VA’s vital
healing role, including for Platner, who entered the system for care in 2017.
Read his piece here. (https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/the-complications-of-graham-platners-veteran-identity)
Join our friends at Veterans For Peace for an in-person and virtual convention
with community organizers and activists as we organize, reflect, and build the
future of a movement at a time when repression continues to rise, and war
profiteers continue to harm. VFP’s Peace Through Nonviolent Action: From Chaos
to Community (https://vfpconvention.org/convention-schedule/) will include:
* Discussions from organizers and powerful labor organizers who joined the
international Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza and from a professor of Labor and
History from Cornell;
* Discussions from Indigenous activists about the history of white colonialism
and imperialism that has been destroying their land and people on this
continent and continues its path in Gaza, the West Bank, Iran, Lebanon;
* Engagement with VFP members working on veterans’ healthcare, active-duty
outreach, migrant and student defense, the Climate Crisis, and anti-militarism
actions
VHPI’s Executive Director Oscar Arbulu will join VFP Vice President and other
experts on a panel discussing saving the Veterans Administration.
2026 VFP National Convention Registration (https://
action.veteransforpeace.org/a/vfp-2026-convention-registration)
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