Veterans are once again being asked to turn their suffering into a political weather vane, with 2026 midterms looming over a system that has already failed them in deadly fashion. A new poll from Veteran Action and Rasmussen Reports says support for veteran health care could shape congressional races, while two bills before Congress — the Veterans' ACCESS Act and the Veterans' Bill of Rights Act — are being pitched as fixes for a VA apparatus that has already left veterans waiting, hidden, and dead.
Who Pays for the Bureaucracy
The people at the bottom of this hierarchy are the veterans themselves. In 2014, the Phoenix VA Health Care System was rocked by a major scandal in which officials ran a deliberate criminal scheme, creating secret unofficial waiting lists to hide how badly the system was failing. As many as 1,700 veterans were kept off the official electronic wait list to inflate reported wait times and protect bonuses. Veterans were forced to wait months, in some cases up to 115 days or longer, for basic primary care. At least 40 veterans died while waiting on these hidden lists.
That is the human cost of a system managed from above, where reported numbers and bonuses mattered enough to bury people in delay. The article says the deadly failures continue.
The Doorstep of Care
In 2025 alone, two veterans took their own lives at the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital in San Antonio while trying to get mental health care. In April, Navy veteran Mark Miller killed himself there. He had battled depression and anxiety since leaving the service in 2007 and co-authored a book with his father, Suicide Stalks the Sniper, chronicling that fight. During his final visit, he told his father the staff were "just like robots handing out pills, poisoning our people." His father, Dr. Larry Miller, said, "I lay the blame on the VA system and the psychiatrist who drugged him instead of helping him."
In December, Marine Corps veteran Enrique Ramos Jr. called 911 from the same parking lot, stated his location and his intent, and then took his own life. Both men died at the doorstep of the facility that was supposed to care for them.
What They're Calling Reform
Congress now has two bills in play. The Veterans' Bill of Rights Act would require the VA to plainly inform veterans of their existing rights to health care, benefits, and community care options. The Veterans' ACCESS Act (H.R. 740) would guarantee timely VA care or the immediate right to seek outside care at no extra cost when the VA can't deliver. The article says these bills do not dismantle the VA; they force it to do its job.
That is the reform trap in plain view: the same institution that hid veterans on secret lists and failed to provide timely care is being asked to correct itself through more paperwork, more rights language, and more managed access. The article frames these as practical solutions ready to pass, not as a break from the structure that produced the failures.
Politics at the Top, Suffering at the Bottom
The poll from Veteran Action and Rasmussen Reports shows the political class treating veteran care as a midterm lever. Ninety-four percent back the Veterans' Bill of Rights Act, and seventy-five percent say they would be more likely to support a congressional candidate who backs the Veterans' ACCESS Act. The numbers cut across party lines among the voters who know the VA best.
The same poll shows military voters gave President Trump 60% support, but the Republican generic congressional ballot sits at just 57%. The article says that gap could decide control of the House in key districts. Republicans cannot take their loyalty for granted, and candidates who lead on these issues will earn veteran support while those who do not risk losing it and their seats.
Meanwhile, Democrats in Washington have a different priority: using the VA as a blueprint for nationalized health care. Progressive influencer Ezra Klein called Phillip Longman's Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Health Care Would Work Better For Everyone one of the most important social policy books of the last decade. The article places that argument alongside the ongoing failures, where veterans are still waiting, still being failed, and still dying at the hands of the system built to serve them.
Mark Lucas is president of Veteran Action, a board member of Article III Project and a U.S. Army veteran of the war in Afghanistan.