Former VA Official: Obamacare Puts Vets At Risk

The Affordable Care Act -- generally known as “Obamacare” -- could lead to increased health complications, emergency room visits and even shorter life spans for some veterans, according to a former under secretary of Health for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Dr. Kenneth Kizer, director of the new Institute for Population Health Improvement at the University of California, Davis, Health System, said the ACA’s creation of more healthcare options could cause increased “fragmentation” of care among vets who now rely solely on the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“Some data suggest that veterans receiving care from both VA and non-VA sources are more likely to be re-hospitalized and to die within a year compared with VA-only users,” Kizer wrote last year in a commentary for the Journal of the American Medical Association.