Frederica Freyberg:
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.

Tammy Baldwin:
The mass firings that we have seen have had real, real impact.

Yvonne Duesterhoeft:
Appointments are being canceled because there is not a provider there to see them.

Jussi Reponen:
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.

Tammy Baldwin:
That’s right.

Yvonne Duesterhoeft:
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.

Frederica Freyberg:
The retired physician at the VA in Madison we mentioned was also at that roundtable bringing his inside knowledge. Dr. Michael Siebers says the cuts have led to disastrous problems for veterans’ health care. He joins us now. Doctor, thanks for being here.

Michael Siebers:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
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?

Michael Siebers:
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.

Frederica Freyberg:
You said that there’s a certain secrecy about what’s happening. How so?

Michael Siebers:
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 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. They’re a group of people who are quite dedicated to taking care of veterans.

Frederica Freyberg:
What are some other examples of the real-world consequences inside these hospitals?

Michael Siebers:
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.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what are your former colleagues there telling you about conditions like that inside for both health care, but also morale?

Michael Siebers:
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.

Frederica Freyberg:
I was going to ask, how should families — what should they know about what all this means for patient care?

Michael Siebers:
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, they’re 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.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what is the mindset of the veterans the VA cares for?

Michael Siebers:
Well, I think, you know, they’re of two minds. There are a 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.

Frederica Freyberg:
Because that’s the kind of care that the VA kind of has a mission toward?

Michael Siebers:
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.

Frederica Freyberg:
Thank you for your insight, Dr. Michael Siebers.

Michael Siebers:
It’s my pleasure. Thank you.