America First Audit — Veterans as a Private Market

VA reduced staffing by nearly 30,000 through attrition, retirements, deferred resignations, and a hiring freeze, and separately solicited new community-care contracts. Community care was already a large program, with VA reporting more than $36 billion paid to outside providers in fiscal 2025. The cited record does not establish that staffing reductions caused privatization or that private contractors displaced a quantified amount of VA care.