Last January, Secretary of the VA Shulkin played politics with veterans' lives when he excluded ONLY Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) from the Full Practice Authority granted to Nurse Practitioners and Nurse Midwives (the VA employs ZERO nurse midwives!) This ruling meant that the VA would continue to employ 2 anesthesia providers (nurse anesthetists as well as more expensive physician anesthesiologists) to provide anesthesia care to each veteran having surgery. And this despite the fact that CRNAs, highly educated anesthesia professionals, provide life-saving anesthesia care to soldiers on the battlefield,  with NO anesthesiologists "supervising" them. CRNAs practice independently in every branch of the military, keeping soldiers alive after the worst wounds on the battlefield. If they are good enough to keep wounded soldiers alive on the front lines, shouldn't we be giving our veteran's the same life-saving care at home, at 1/3 the cost?