Concerns grow in Colorado over the VA’s push to send veterans to private care

Bernie Rogoff is a Korean War-era Army veteran who’s spent his life advocating for fellow service members.

The 95-year-old led the push for Denver’s modern Veterans Affairs medical center, which opened in 2018 to serve Colorado’s nearly 400,000 veterans. Rogoff still calls it one of his proudest achievements. He remembers it finally felt like “someone is listening.”

That hospital was meant to be a cornerstone for veterans in Colorado — a place where they could get the specialized care Rogoff says they earned.

But since the second Trump administration began in January, that promise feels different.

Under Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, the agency has laid off thousands of employees and is sending more veterans outside the VA to private doctors and clinics, saying the goal