Area veterans shared a variety of concerns during an American Legion town hall in Gurnee Monday evening, with officials fielding questions on everything from personal health challenges to the reduction of tens of thousands of Department of Veterans Affairs workers.
The town hall was part of the American Legion’s broader System Worth Saving initiative, which aims to improve the VA health care system through site visits to medical facilities and regional offices across the country.
According to Les Deffner, senior vice commander of Post 771, one of the “real concerns” for him and other veterans has been the federal staff reductions to the VA. According to previous reports, there had originally been plans to cut more than 80,000 positions at the VA. That has since been dropped to 30,000 positions, to be reduced through attrition and retirements.
Dr. Robert Buckley, the director of the Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, ended up being the primary speaker of the night. He gave reassurances to the gathered veterans.
“I am completely convinced that no one will take care of our veterans better than the VA,” Buckley said. “There’s a commitment to take care of our veterans no matter what. It looks sometimes when you watch the news, it’s like gripping your seat, ‘What’s going to happen next?’ I can tell you … I see that commitment in past and current administrations.”
He also argued large organizations such as the VA will see an “ebb and flow” of hiring and layoffs, and said “there’s not going to be any wholesale reduction … across the hospitals.”
The other issue of discussion was the VA’s electronic health record modernization effort, meant to replace its current more-than-30-year-old system that has proven “complex and costly to maintain,” according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
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The latest effort to replace the system began in 2018, with the system deployed at six medical centers, but the rollout was paused in 2023 due to user concerns over system reliability. Since then, the system has seen various changes to address the issues.
According to the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization website, the system modernization was deployed at Lovell in 2024.
Matthew Cardenas, the American Legion policy analyst at the DC headquarters, said his biggest concerns have been around the system’s rollout. Its initial failure had caused the deaths of five veterans in Spokane, Washington, where it was first launched, he said, and he worried about what would happen with the much larger Chicago-area launch.
While he felt issues seemed to still remain, after meeting with Buckley and Lovell staff and seeing Monday’s town hall, he said he was reassured, praising the Lovell facility and their efforts in helping area veterans learn about the new system.
“This area is the test with the biggest hospital they’ve done so far,” Cardenas said. “It’s a good sign for the EHRM program in general.”
He seemed less enthusiastic about announcements by the VA that it plans to deploy the new system at nine additional medical facilities in 2026. In the past six years, the effort has averaged one site a year, and Cardenas was uncertain how successful such a “ramp up” would be.
Other legion members gave similarly positive reactions to Buckley’s and others’ responses, and Lovell staff stayed after the town hall with several members to help with their concerns.