In 1865, when Abraham Lincoln called on the United States "to care for him who shall have borne the battle," he established a federal promise to veterans that has endured for over 160 years. In the modern age, that responsibility extends beyond simply curing the ailments of war. These days, it falls to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide a multitude of services for former military men and women, to which President Donald Trump has made numerous changes since his return to the White House in January 2025.
During his 2024 election campaign, Trump promised to eradicate veteran homelessness, while his appointee for VA Secretary Doug Collins promised to improve access to benefits and medical treatment. Those ambitions have been pursued alongside the administration's wider efforts to reduce the federal workforce. Now, nearly two years after Trump's return to office, the results have been mixed.
Disability claims are being processed much faster, and veterans have access to more health care appointments. But substantial workforce reductions, seen across the federal government, and staffing shortages are impacting some of the key services veterans are entitled to. Newsweek has approached the VA for comment via email.
Under Trump, the VA has substantially reduced disability claims processing times and cleared much of its backlog. According to the VA, the average time to decide a claim fell from 141.5 days when Trump took office, down to 75.6 days in September 2026, a reduction of almost 47 percent. The department has also touted a record number of claims processed: 3.11 million in fiscal year 2026, compared to just over 3 million in fiscal year 2025, and reduced a backlog of claims by "more than 70 percent." “Under the leadership of President Trump, VA is making historic progress to better serve Veterans, and these record-breaking claims processing numbers prove it,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in October this year.
"Reducing the disability claims backlog is meaningful progress," he said. "I've experienced firsthand how frustrating the process can be for veterans trying to navigate paperwork, understand eligibility requirements and get answers about their benefits. "Better information, better updated systems, better data management and more personalized assistance would make a tremendous difference." But questions have emerged about the reliability of some of those decisions.
An investigation published this week by The Beam, an accountability newsroom at Arizona State University’s Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, reports that amid the VA's expansion of its Automated Decision Support (ADS) system, errors through reviews increased from more than 66,000 in fiscal year 2021 to over 329,000 in 2026. Introduced in 2021, ADS collects and summarizes medical evidence from veterans' service and treatment records. It searches documents for relevant information and assesses whether there is sufficient evidence for a claim to proceed or whether additional medical examination is needed.
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