Hillsborough County matches Florida's rate of VA health coverage

An estimated 44,045 Hillsborough County residents rely on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for health coverage, according to new Census Bureau survey figures. That is 2.9% of the county's civilian residents who live outside institutions such as nursing homes.

Most are men, and seniors are covered at a far higher rate than the rest of the county. Yet the county's share trails the home counties of San Antonio and Jacksonville, Sun Belt metros with large military communities.

The figures come from the American Community Survey and pool answers collected from 2020 through 2024. They are the newest local count of residents covered by VA care, which helps show who depends on the hospital and clinics in and around Tampa.

Who is covered

Men make up 81.6% of the county's VA-covered residents. The survey counts an estimated 35,931 men with VA coverage, compared with 8,114 women.

Among men, the largest group is working age. An estimated 20,363 working-age men have VA coverage, compared with 14,971 men who are seniors.

As a share of the population, VA coverage is most common among older residents. An estimated 16,635 seniors in the county have VA coverage. That is 7.4% of everyone in that age group, well above the countywide rate of 2.9%.

The survey measures coverage, not military service. It does not explain why the gap between men and women is so wide, and it cannot say how often covered residents actually use VA care.

How Hillsborough compares

Hillsborough's share is the same as Florida's estimated 2.9%. Both sit above the national figure of 2.2%.

The county falls short of peer military metros, though. In Bexar County, Texas, home to San Antonio, 4.2% of residents have VA coverage. In Duval County, which includes Jacksonville, the share is 3.5%.

Both gaps hold up under statistical testing. Hillsborough's share is 1.2 percentage points lower than Bexar's and 0.6 percentage points lower than Duval's, differences larger than the survey's margins of error.

Raw counts tell a somewhat different story. Bexar County has an estimated 84,254 VA-covered residents, far more than Hillsborough. But Hillsborough's 44,045 tops Duval's 35,447, even though Duval's share is higher.

The comparison group also includes the core counties of the Orlando, Charlotte, Denver and Miami metros. Among Hillsborough and those peers, Hillsborough ranks 3rd by VA coverage share, behind only Bexar and Duval. Some of the smaller gaps with the other peers may fall within the margin of error, as the chart shows.

Where care is delivered

Many covered residents get care through VA Tampa, anchored by the James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital, which opened in 1972 (Veterans Affairs). The hospital is affiliated with the University of South Florida (Veterans Affairs).

The system also runs additional sites of care, including Hidden River in Tampa and South Hillsborough in Riverview. Others are in Brooksville, Lakeland, Lecanto, New Port Richey and Zephyrhills (Veterans Affairs).

VA Tampa operates mobile clinics for veterans who can't easily reach a facility. It also offers a domiciliary at the Temple Terrace Clinic for veterans who are homeless or at risk of homelessness (Veterans Affairs).

The hospital says it is a leader in rehabilitating active-duty service members through its Post-Deployment Rehabilitation and Evaluation Program. It also says it has one of the VA's largest spinal cord injury centers (Veterans Affairs).

The VA's own enrollment count covers a wider area than the county. The Tampa hospital's enrollees include veterans in Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando and Polk counties (Veterans Affairs), so that figure can't be lined up directly with the county survey estimate.

The survey estimate is the better gauge of how many people living in Hillsborough County report VA coverage. The hospital's figures are the better gauge of how many veterans across the region are signed up for care.

Veterans Day falls on Nov. 11. The next multiyear survey release will update these estimates. Each release pools several years of answers, so shifts in the county's VA-covered population will show up gradually rather than all at once.

How we did this

We used Census Bureau American Community Survey estimates for 2020–2024 on health coverage by type, sex and age for Hillsborough County, a group of peer counties, Florida and the U.S. We compared shares of residents with VA health care coverage and tested the differences between Hillsborough and Bexar and Duval counties for statistical significance; Hillsborough ranked 3rd among the peer group.

VA health care coverage: people who told the Census Bureau they have health care through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Civilian noninstitutionalized population: residents who are not on active military duty and do not live in places such as nursing homes or prisons. Working-age adults and seniors: the survey's adult age bands; the chart shows the exact age ranges. Percentage point: the simple difference between percentages. Margin of error: the range around a survey estimate that likely contains the true value. Gaps smaller than the margin of error may be noise.

Limitations

• These are survey estimates with margins of error, not a full count. Small differences between counties may not be meaningful.
• The figures pool responses from 2020 through 2024, so they describe an average over that period rather than a single year.
• The survey measures whether people report VA health coverage. It does not show how often they use VA care, and it does not identify veteran status.
• The survey excludes active-duty military and people living in institutions such as nursing homes.
• VA enrollment figures for the Tampa hospital cover several counties and are counted differently, so they cannot be compared directly with the county estimate.
• The data show who is covered, not why coverage rates differ between places.

Sources

• U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey: VA Health Care by Sex by Age (ACS 5-year 2020–2024), latest period 2024; retrieved Oct. 12, 2026. Data