Tim Sheehy to speak at town hall hosted by right-wing group that favors closing VA clinics

Montana Republican U.S. Senate nominee Tim Sheehy will speak at a town hall hosted by Concerned Veterans for America, a right-wing lobbying group that backs privatization of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and supported a federal report from 2022 that recommended closing four Montana VA facilities. 

Sheehy is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, who has opposed efforts to privatize care for veterans and helped block a proposal to close a VA nursing home in Miles City and rural VA clinics in Browning, Glasgow, and Plentywood and to relocate some services from the Billings facility to community providers.

According to social media ads, Sheehy will be the special guest at an Aug. 23 veterans town hall event hosted by Concerned Veterans for America in Bozeman. “If you agree that veterans should have timely and quality care,” the ads say, “join us for a town hall near you.”

Sheehy has touted an endorsement from the group, which is part of fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch’s network of anti-government political groups. It operates out of the same Arlington, Virginia, building as other Koch-backed tax-exempt groups Americans for Prosperity, the LIBRE Initiative, and the Charles Koch Foundation.

The Sheehy campaign did not immediately respond to a Montana Independent request for comment for this story.

Veterans organizations have been critical of what they call Concerned Veterans for America’s deceptive efforts to push VA privatization. “They’re a political lobbying firm,” American Legion national director of veterans affairs and rehabilitation told the Washington Post in 2018. “They’re not a veterans organization. They’re using veterans issues as a tool to push a political agenda.”

More than 47,000 Montana veterans are enrolled to receive health care through the VA. 

In 2022, the department’s Asset and Infrastructure Review (AIR) Commission proposed that 35 medical centers across the nation be either closed or redesigned and that many services be moved from VA facilities to outside providers. 

Concerned Veterans for America supported the proposal, arguing that older facilities cannot keep up with evolving care and that many facilities are underused. “Each facility represents money that could be spent at a more active facility or following veterans to their providers of choice,” it said in a blog post.

Montana veterans objected to the plan.

“As a Montana veteran, I know how devastating it would be to lose the Glasgow VA Clinic,” Navy veteran Steve Sukut of Glasgow, Montana, said in a statement to the Montana Independent, noting his support for Tester. “This clinic is a lifeline for so many veterans in our rural area. The fact that Tim Sheehy would be endorsed by a group that wants to close this clinic shows why we can’t trust him – he isn’t looking out for us.”

Ken Koehler, a Marine Corps veteran from Miles City, said that he relies on the clinic there for his care. “Without this clinic, I would have to travel far and wide for health care. Anyone who wants to close VA clinics like Miles City doesn’t understand life for rural veterans. I’m a Republican, and I know firsthand that Senator Jon Tester will always go to bat for veterans – he listened to us and put a stop to this closure.”

As chair of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Tester joined with Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines and 10 other colleagues from both parties to effectively block the recommendations. 

“As Senators, we share a commitment to expanding and strengthening modern VA infrastructure in a way that upholds our obligations to America’s veterans,” they said in a joint July 2022 statement. “We believe the recommendations put forth to the AIR Commission are not reflective of that goal, and would put veterans in both rural and urban areas at a disadvantage, which is why we are announcing that this process does not have our support and will not move forward.”

Concerned Veterans for America blasted Tester for the move.

“Sen. Tester has been very much a hindrance to the things that we see are important for veterans and for the economy both,” Concerned Veterans for America Action senior adviser Russ Duerstine told the Washington Examiner in February. “And even though he originally had supported the Mission Act, veterans and military family members have been impacted negatively by him undercutting access standards and community to care for veterans. And so many of our veterans are just stuck in this, this bureaucratic socialist medical system.”

A May 2024 poll conducted by the VA found 80% of veterans who use the agency “trust VA to fulfill our country’s commitment to Veterans.”