The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced that more than 100,000 veterans enrolled in its health care system in the first months of 2026, reaching the milestone earlier in the calendar year than in six of the past seven years. The figures, published in a press release on Monday, come as the Trump administration pushes forward with sweeping operational changes across the department.
The VA currently serves more than nine million Americans who have served in the US military, and has faced persistent criticism in recent years over backlogs affecting access to both health care and benefits. Officials say the latest numbers signal a meaningful shift in how the department is functioning.
Facility Growth and Operational Changes Drive Enrolment
The agency reached the 100,000-enrolment mark on 31 March, according to internal VA tracking. In a statement accompanying the announcement, VA Secretary Doug Collins said the results reflected a fundamental transformation in how the department operates. “We have transformed VA from a bureaucratic organisation to a service organisation … where Veterans come first in everything we do,” Collins wrote, describing the figures as proof that veterans are responding to improvements made under President Trump.
Among the changes the department credited for the increase were the opening of 34 new facilities across the country and a commitment to invest five billion dollars this year in maintaining and upgrading health care infrastructure, an amount the VA described as the largest non-recurring maintenance investment in its history.
The department has also seen a significant reduction in its claims backlog. In February, the VA reported that the backlog of disability compensation and pension benefit claims had fallen by 63 per cent since 20 January 2025, when it stood at 264,717 cases. The proportion of claims older than 125 days dropped to 17 per cent, down from a peak of 70 per cent recorded in 2013.
The agency processed more than three million disability compensation and pension claims in 2025, surpassing its previous record of approximately 2.49 million set the year before, and distributed 195 billion dollars in payments to more than 6.9 million veterans and survivors.
Budget Proposals and Policy Changes Draw Mixed Reactions
The enrolment milestone coincides with the release of the Trump administration’s 2027 budget proposal, which outlines significant changes to VA funding pending congressional approval. The proposal calls for 10.6 billion dollars in additional spending on medical care, 800 million dollars for health records modernisation, 130 million dollars in artificial intelligence investment, and a further 389 million dollars for IT systems.
The budget also proposes ending Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programmes across the department and restructuring the Veterans Health Administration. It would establish anew body, the Warrior Independence and Self-Sufficiency Ethos Office, tasked with evaluating all programmes across the VA.
Not all of the administration’s moves have been welcomed. Veterans groups raised concerns over a proposed rule that would have altered disability ratings and compensation based on how veterans function while taking medication. The department subsequently rescinded that rule following the criticism.
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