VA Caregiver Program Purges: Who Is Behind What?

Spouses stepping in the gap between VA Caregiver Program purges and the services their veterans need are taking the agency to the courtroom of public opinion in a big way.

Their goal? To expose who is behind what curtain.

Curtain One is the organization or individuals at work to repair the damage caused by the recent attempts to purge 90 percent of legacy caregivers from the agency program.

Curtain Two is the magician behind the erratic and harmful policies resulting in caregivers being purged from the program over the past six years.

Fellow caregivers Kristie Sheets and Robin Stitt sat down for an interview last week to discuss their experiences with the VA Caregiver Program. While the interviews pre-dated the announcement by VA of an interim rule change, the concerns expressed by these legacy caregivers are still valid except one.

There is no pending purge as of the interim rule change submitted last week – it is instead pushed out to 2025 – while not a perfect fix, this is a better position. That aside, the caregivers are punching back at harmful agency policies impacting their lives and the lives of others. The conversation with them begins to pull back the curtain on who is behind what.

But who is behind Curtain One (hooray) and Curtain Two (boo-hiss)?

RELATED: VA Announces 3-Year Purge Pause

Answers to this question are touched on in the interviews that aired Sunday evening.

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