The Myth of “Veterans Can Go Anywhere for Healthcare”

There is a statement that gets repeated constantly whenever concerns are raised about access to veteran healthcare:

“Veterans can go anywhere for healthcare now.”

Yes and no.

Programs like the VA Community Care Program and the MISSION Act did expand access to civilian providers outside of VA facilities. In many situations, that expansion was absolutely necessary. Veterans should not have to drive hours for routine appointments, wait months for specialty care, or suffer because their local VA infrastructure cannot meet demand.

I fully support veterans being able to use civilian healthcare providers when appropriate.

But the idea that this somehow replaces the need for actual VA medical centers is dangerously misleading.

Community care is not a magic wand. It is a supplement to the system, not a replacement for it.

The reality is that the VA still maintains strict control over who qualifies for outside care, what services are approved, how long approvals last, and whether referrals continue. Veterans often find themselves trapped in a maze of authorizations, denials, delayed paperwork, canceled referrals, billing disputes, and endless phone calls between the VA and civilian providers.

“Go anywhere” sounds simple until you are sitting on hold trying to explain to three different offices why your oncology referral expired during processing.

There is also another issue that rarely gets discussed publicly:

Civilian healthcare systems often do not understand military-related health conditions.

Veterans are not simply civilians who happen to wear camouflage in old Facebook photos. Military service creates unique physical and psychological health risks that many civilian providers have little experience treating.

That includes:

• Toxic exposure-related illnesses from burn pits, Agent Orange, radiation exposure, PFAS contamination, and airborne hazards

• Combat-related PTSD and trauma

• Military sexual trauma

• Complex musculoskeletal injuries caused by years of training and deployments

• Polytrauma cases

• Service-connected neurological conditions

• Long-term health effects connected to military occupational specialties and deployment environments

A civilian provider may be an excellent doctor and still have little understanding of what prolonged exposure to burn pits in Afghanistan can do to the human body.

They may never have treated a veteran whose joints were destroyed from airborne operations, heavy load-bearing, repetitive blast exposure, or years of military wear and tear.

And that gap matters.

Because if providers do not recognize the connections between military service and illness, conditions get missed, underreported, misdiagnosed, or dismissed entirely.

There is also a much larger systemic issue at play.

When veteran healthcare becomes increasingly outsourced and fragmented across civilian systems, the federal government loses visibility into what is actually happening to veterans.

Data matters.

Research matters.

Tracking matters.

If veterans with toxic exposure illnesses are scattered across thousands of civilian healthcare networks instead of centralized within the VA system, it becomes much harder to identify trends, conduct long-term studies, track outcomes, or establish patterns connected to military service.

And unfortunately, there is an ugly truth in government bureaucracy:

Systems can ignore what they do not measure.

If the data is incomplete, delayed, fragmented, or buried across disconnected civilian systems, it becomes easier for agencies and lawmakers to claim there is “insufficient evidence” showing widespread problems.

We have already seen this play out repeatedly with toxic exposures and environmental hazards affecting veterans.

The VA healthcare system is not just about treatment. It is also one of the largest veteran-specific research and tracking systems in the country.

That is why full-service VA medical centers still matter.

A true VA hospital is not simply a building with a few exam rooms. It creates a centralized hub for coordinated veteran care under one system.

That includes:

• Primary care

• Oncology

• Endocrinology

• Neurology

• Physical therapy

• Prosthetics

• Dental

• Vision care

• Audiology

• Emergency services

• Women’s health

• Mental health services

• Suicide prevention programs

• Inpatient care

• Long-term specialty treatment

And mental health access deserves special attention.

We cannot continue pretending that mental healthcare is optional support infrastructure.

For many veterans, local access to PTSD treatment, counseling, crisis intervention, substance abuse treatment, and suicide prevention services can literally determine whether they survive.

Distance matters.

Travel fatigue matters.

Isolation matters.

Accessibility matters.

A veteran already struggling with depression, anxiety, chronic pain, or trauma is far less likely to seek help if every major appointment requires navigating traffic, coordinating transportation, missing work, or driving hours away from home.

Which brings this issue home to Fort Worth.

Fort Worth now has a population exceeding one million residents and sits at the heart of one of the largest metropolitan regions in the country. Texas itself has one of the largest veteran populations in America.

Yet Fort Worth still lacks a full-service VA hospital.

Instead, many veterans are forced to rely on outpatient clinics while traveling to Dallas for major specialty care and inpatient services.

That may have made sense decades ago.

It does not make sense now.

Veterans, their families, and their survivors deserve more than pieced-together infrastructure and bureaucratic workarounds. Community care can help fill gaps, but it should never become an excuse for failing to invest in actual veteran healthcare infrastructure where veterans live.

Especially in one of the fastest-growing cities in America.

Because “you can go anywhere” means very little if nowhere nearby is truly built to care for veterans.