WASHINGTON — In an opinion editorial published by FOX News today, four former VA Secretaries who served under Presidents Bush and Obama strongly backed VA’s proposed community care access standards that form a central part of the MISSION Act.

VA proposed the access standards last week, basing them on an analysis of best practices in both government and private sector health care systems.

In their op-ed, former secretaries Anthony Principi, Jim Nicholson, James Peake and Robert McDonald said that the proposed standards “will place veterans at the center of their health care decisions.”

The former secretaries also pushed back strongly against predictable and false claims that the new standards amount to privatization of the VA, writing that “Some critics insinuate these moves to empower veterans and spur the VA to be more customer-focused may somehow lead to the dismantling of the VA and to outsourcing all medical care for veterans to the private sector. This presumption discounts and disregards what is happening inside the VA today because of efforts begun during our time in office and since then.”

The full op-ed is available here.

Reporters and media outlets with questions or comments should contact the Office of Media Relations at vapublicaffairs@va.gov

Veterans with questions about their health care and benefits (including GI Bill). Questions, updates and documents can be submitted online.

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