Op-Ed: Bringing change to the insider's game
Op ed originally published in the Reno Gazette Journal
by Sam Brown
“If they hadn’t received this medication, they would’ve gone blind,” the voice said through the phone.
Working 10-hour shifts at a Reno Amazon warehouse is about as grueling as it sounds. After a long day of work, I’d sit down around the dinner table with my family, share supper and conversation, and work late hours into the night applying what I’d learned from earning my MBA towards starting a small business.
I served our nation in uniform before, but this time it was my mission to serve fellow veterans.
My wife Amy, also an Army veteran, and I use the VA for our primary health care, so we’re very familiar with what it does well and where it comes up short.
In 2018, I founded my Reno-based business which filled a gap in veterans care when the VA was unable to provide same-day medications. We worked to ensure every veteran, from the East Coast to the Pacific Islands and regions between, received their medications the same day they were referred to us, without any out-of-pocket expenses.
The VA isn’t perfect. Ask any veteran, and I’m sure they, too, have their own stories to share.
Still, there have been concerted efforts to improve standards and care. Under President Trump, the VA MISSION Act attempted to fix the VA health care system, hold its failed administrators accountable, modernize VA facilities, and expand care choices for veterans.
Perhaps most importantly, his reforms established standards on wait times and the distance a veteran must travel to receive care — so that veterans don’t spend long hours waiting for an appointment or drive far distances to see a doctor.
The VA MISSION Act made it possible for veterans to seek care outside of the system, from community care providers. It gave veterans the power to make the best choices for their health care, expanding and improving the Veterans Choice Program that allowed veterans to go to civilian doctors. As highlighted in a 2024 VA Red Team report, it’s something veterans want.
As common sense as this sounds, the D.C. bureaucrats don’t like it. They’d rather see control, and all that money, centralized to government-run facilities.
In fact, big government politicians, including Senator Jacky Rosen, voted against providing funding for the Veterans Choice Program.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration has slashed care for veterans, pushing veterans away from community care back to the socialized system VA system. It’s resulted in longer wait times for an appointment and longer travel distances to see a doctor — putting some veterans in life-or-death circumstances that would have been unimaginable if the MISSION Act was allowed to operate as conceived. At the North Las Vegas VA Medical Center, for example, new veteran patients must wait at least 108 days to receive primary care. It’s outrageous.
Where has Jacky Rosen been as Joe Biden (who she votes with 98% of the time) systematically rolled back and dismantled the health care improvements that so many veterans have counted on? She’s chosen silence over speaking out; party politics over veterans care. Jacky refuses to do the right thing and push back against Biden’s attacks.
Too many of us have been left behind by this system, and veterans issues have been politicized to the point where party disputes lead to no solutions. That’s what happens when you have a room full of politicians, not veterans, running our country.
It’s one of the reasons I’m running to be your senator. I’ve seen how government operates, where it falls short, and how we can improve it. It takes an outsider willing to fight to truly bring change to the insider’s game. I did it in the private sector for veterans, and I’ll do it in the U.S. Senate.
I heard the care provider’s voice through the phone, bringing me back from my thoughts.
“If they hadn’t received this medication, they would’ve gone blind.”
I remembered the patient. The VA couldn’t fill the prescription; reimbursement rates wouldn’t cover the ingredient cost of this specialty medication. Thankfully, the provider reached out, and I volunteered to cover the costs.
“Thank you for stepping in and making sure the veteran got this specialty compound medication. You saved their eyesight,” the provider said.
Sam Brown is an author, small businessman, and retired U.S. Army Captain. He is the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Nevada.