tax cuts for the very wealthy and big corporations.
>> Senator Johnson is expected to join us next
week. The Department of Veterans Affairs is in
crisis. Those are the words of a retired physician of 27
years at the VA hospital in Madison. Trump
administration DOGE cuts to VA health care are having
real life consequences to the some 9 million patients
and their care teams and providers across the
country. This week, Senator Baldwin held a roundtable in
Madison with veterans, patients and employees to
hear about it. >> The mass firings that we
have seen have had real, real impact.
>> Appointments are being canceled because there is
not a provider there to see them.
>> I went out there and I was deployed. I don't know
how many times, but I did it and I just called and they
reglued my feet together and I put my boots back on and I
went back out there. I just enjoyed my job so much
because we had the sense that our Congress, our
Senate and our president and those offices would take
care of us because we were taking care of what they
were asking us to do. >> That's right. I have been
getting calls where many highly service connected.
Many with, you know, fragile mental health are afraid
that their benefits will be taken. And I have had more
than one say. Well, then I'll just kill myself. It's
horrifying. >> The retired physician at
the VA in Madison, we mentioned was also at that
roundtable, bringing his inside knowledge. Doctor
Michael Sieber says the cuts have led to disastrous
problems for veterans health care. He joins us now.
Doctor, thanks for being here.
>> So we know that the VA secretary wants to cut the
agency's workforce by about 83,000 employees, but vows
not to take any frontline health care workers. What's
your knowledge about who's been let go or who's
leaving? Because of the kind of uncertainty of it all?
>> Well, it's very hard to get exact data, but it's
clear that even with the cuts that have been made so
far, services have been worsened for veterans. So
it's only going to get worse as time goes by.
>> You said that there's a certain secrecy about what's
happening. >> How so? There is a
secrecy. There are DOGE people that are senior
advisors now working at the Veterans Administration. The
leadership in the 170 different medical centers
around the country have had had to sign non-disclosure
agreements. The people on the ground, the people
working in the VA hospital don't know what's going to
happen. They're very fearful about the cuts. There are a
group of people who are quite dedicated to taking
care of veterans. >> What are some other
examples of the real world consequences in inside these
hospitals? >> At the Middleton VA
hospital where I work, they have a shortage of custodial
staff so that individual persons, including
secretaries and cardiovascular surgeons, are
cleaning their own rooms, emptying their own
wastebaskets. The veterans are cleaning the Or and
surgeries are delayed. While they're doing that cleaning.
>> So what are your former colleagues there telling you
about conditions like that inside for both health care,
but also morale? >> Well, morale is terrible.
The fear about what's going to happen, not knowing what
it's going to be. The fact that there was a mandate
that everybody working from home had to come to the
hospital. People are jammed, jam packed in, you know,
this happened with the suicide prevention hotline
and there was no confidentiality. People were
working out of closets or, you know, six at a table. So
there are a lot of things that have happened that make
it more difficult to deliver good medical care.
>> I was going to ask, how should families what what
should they know about what all this means for patient
care? >> Well, it's not good. I
mean, there are things that are happening that make it
harder to deliver good patient care. The pattern of
loss of people at the VA is primarily letting go. People
who are support staff, so that the physicians, they're
not letting them go. The nurses are not letting them
go. Although 1700 nurses have already taken early
deferred retirement. 200 doctors we know have taken
early deferred retirement. There was a case where in
one VA hospital, the x rays were piling up. There was no
radiologist to read them for an extended period of time.
And that's a very detrimental and dangerous
situation for patients. >> So what is the mindset of
the veterans? The VA cares for?
>> Well, I think, you know, they're of two minds. There
are group of veterans, a significant group who voted
for President Trump and think he's doing the right
thing in most cases. But many have reservations in
that group. And there is a group, of course, who are
extremely upset about what's happening. Their whole goal
is to privatize all medical health care for veterans.
The new budget for 26 has 4% increase in the budget for
the VA, but it's largely earmarked to go for care in
the community with private providers. You know, the
average private provider visit is like 10 to 12
minutes. You know, wouldn't probably be accurate or
helpful for a patient who has suicidality or PTSD or
homelessness. >> Because that's the kind
of care that that the VA kind of has a mission
toward. >> The mission is to take
care of veterans. We've got a system that tries to help
them, but we're losing psychologists. We're losing
psychiatrists. So it's becoming more difficult to
take care of those people. >> Thank you for your