Though I’ve covered veterans’ issues many times over the years, it never ceases to amaze me how they are always the first to be thanked by our political leaders, only then to become the first on the chopping block when it comes to funding political pet projects.

Sadly, the recent battles between the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), giant corporations with political ties, and disabled veterans have shown that this tactic is clearly thriving in 2025.

With tax revenue losses due to the corporate welfare structure found in the “Big Beautiful Bill” reaching almost a billion dollars—in Colorado ALONE—political leaders and the VA have decided to ratchet up investigations into potentially fraudulent healthcare claims made by veterans to recoup some of the losses.

According to a WAPO/Independent UK investigation, the VA has been deluged with suspicious disability claims, leading to tens of millions of dollars’ worth of fraud. About 556,000 ex-service members get disability benefits for eczema, 332,000 get payments for hemorrhoids, 110,000 are eligible thanks to benign skin growths, while 81,000 get payments for acne.

Though these few examples total almost a million separate claims by themselves, anyone with common sense and a grasp of 3rd grade math can see that going after these vets is nothing more than a fool’s errand.

Let’s play along and assume that EVERY single claim is fraudulent and gets stopped. OK, that means you have reduced (only) Colorado’s $825 million tax-break shortfall by maybe $50 million at most.

That amount is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Whenever I saw commenters alluding to this math in various news stories, it was always followed by someone who supported the fraud investigation, and their response would always mention Mike Blea as the reason it needs to happen.

Mike Blea of Northglenn, Colorado, was sentenced in April 2019 to a year in prison for defrauding the Department of Veterans Affairs out of nearly $1.3 million, claiming he was blind. He was also ordered to pay the VA $1,273,180 in restitution.

Yes, $1.3 million is a lot, and if the VA could find 100 more offenders like Mike Blea, then I could see the need for a massive investigation putting millions of veterans under a microscope. However, Blea’s fraudulent claims began in 1969; it took him 50 years to rack up that amount.

Though I’m not a statistician, I can’t imagine the percentage of people able to defraud the government for 50 years straight without getting caught as being very high.

With the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) releasing a statement chastising these reports and witch-hunt, the House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee convened an oversight hearing that put the entire VA disability screening process under scrutiny.

During testimony, it was revealed that there had been numerous constituent complaints involving wrong or inappropriate exams, inadequate exam conditions—such as some conducted in hotel rooms—and poor accessibility for disabled veterans. Adding to the problems is the fact that over 90% of its medical exams are turned over to private companies.

So, let’s recap this:

The government requires a veteran to undergo a series of health exams in a Motel 6, knowing full well the results will be dubious at best. While the claim gets approved, the government knows that because of the flaws in their screening process, they will have standing to sue that veteran for fraud when Uncle Sam goes broke.

Simply put, it’s stacking the deck.

I find this entire setup to be tasteless, yet completely unsurprising. Whether it’s rotting food being served at the Aurora VA, or the myriad of proposed budget cuts to the VA nationwide, I’m reminded of the stories my father would tell me about being spat on by passersby when he came back from Korea.

Sure, that form of physical retaliation may no longer be tolerated, but can we say these ghoulish actions by the VA of gaming their health are REALLY any better?