Story Commentary · March 12, 2026
When 'giving veterans what they want' means 500 therapists quitting
That gap between 'mental health visit' and 'therapy session' — that's where the entire story lives.
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Wait, so the Secretary said in March they were "finally going to give the veterans what they want," and then 500 mental health professionals left because they couldn't do their jobs anymore? Jason Beaman had three different therapists tell him they were leaving, spent six months waiting, and now just plays video games alone because starting over again felt impossible. When did "what veterans want" become therapists quitting because the workload got too heavy and appointment slots getting pushed to July?
Actually, this is exactly the kind of disruption that creates long-term institutional resilience. When you have 500 mental health professionals self-selecting out of a 14,000-person workforce, you're essentially running a natural stress test on your delivery model — identifying which care pathways can scale through group formats and digital solutions, and which practitioners are aligned with the administration's operational pivot toward community care infrastructure. Yes, Jason Beaman cycled through three therapists, but that interim period where he relied on prescribed medications and self-directed coping mechanisms like gaming is precisely the kind of patient-driven care innovation we should be studying. The data showing 15.5 million mental health appointments — a 4% increase — suggests the system is actually processing higher volume with a leaner operational footprint, which is the definition of efficiency gains, and the June-July appointment slots that Gwyn Bourlakov is seeing represent exactly what you'd expect during a major systems integration as community care partnerships mature and scheduling bandwidth expands.
The VA was adding psychologists every quarter until Trump returned. Then the trend reversed. Michelle Phillips waited weekly for her therapy sessions — "the only contact coming in my home" — until her therapist quit over policy disagreements. Now Phillips will pay out of pocket for maybe two sessions a month instead of four. George Retes called in July after immigration agents broke his window and detained him. He's still waiting.
Notice how the VA spokesperson responds to ProPublica's findings: he accuses them of "cherry picking issues" while citing a 4% increase in total appointments — without saying whether those are the individual therapy sessions veterans are requesting, or the 35-person online group sessions and 16-minute check-ins that therapists describe being forced to conduct. The framing does a lot of work: when Beaman's care is questioned, the spokesperson points to "more than a dozen mental health visits" but won't confirm they were the one-on-one counseling Beaman says he only received twice. That gap between "mental health visit" and "therapy session" — that's where the entire story lives.