At today's Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing, Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) questioned VA Secretary Doug Collins.
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00:00The President's budget calls for a nearly five billion dollar increase for
00:05the VA, primarily for medical care and for homelessness. You have been accused
00:11of cutting care and benefits, we've heard a great deal of that today, which is
00:16obviously a scare tactic. How do you plan to target the new funding that you are
00:21requesting? Exactly what we just what you just said there and that is to our
00:25health care side, I mean community care side. Community care is growing but it's
00:29actually been under budgeted in the last few years by the previous
00:32administration so we've got to actually make sure that the the proper monies are
00:36being put into community care. Also looking at how we actually need to
00:40improve our direct care services. We've got a lot of issues out there that range
00:45from not only recruitment and retention of employees but also our facilities, the
00:49things that we have. Our average age of facility is well over 60 years old. These
00:54are the kind of things that we're working right now that again along with a
00:57reshaping of the force that we're looking at right now, looking at our
01:01contracts to make sure that some of the folks sitting behind me actually get the
01:04care that they have deserved and earned. It's interesting to me though again when
01:09we've talked about here in the last little bit I've had in some of the
01:11conversation today is where people have called offices and said they've had you
01:15know appointments that are delayed or they can't get it. I just simply in all
01:19fairness I just have to ask that was the same thing happening in December. That was the
01:23same thing happening in November last year. There's the only difference right
01:28now is is I'm sitting here saying we are looking and going through a
01:31comprehensive approach on how to force size the force at the VA and spend the
01:37money that that you and the house appropriate to us. That's the only
01:42difference. People have had to you know and again I could stand veteran after
01:45veteran after veteran standing here saying I couldn't get in to see my
01:48appointment. I couldn't get in. The problem is when was that? We're still
01:52working on that because we have issues in our system then a bureaucracy is not
01:56good and we had hospitals and VA's who are not sending people to community care.
02:00Cutting bureaucracy means better service for our veterans. Yes. And that's what
02:05you're doing. How are you planning to reinvest any savings from headcount
02:09reduction to improve services for our veterans? That'll go back into our
02:14different services and I think that's what we've already shown and had to sign up on
02:18taking it back into community care, back into improving our IT systems, back into
02:22improving our prosthetics, back into improving our situations when our mental
02:27health counselors and others that we can actually show real results in. One of the
02:30things that's amazing enough that's not been talked about here today and I think
02:34it's for me has been the top line that I've talked about all along except in a way
02:38that frankly was not truthful in the sense of what we're doing is suicide has not
02:42been discussed here today and the issue that we still have since 2008 have not
02:47seen a significant decrease in our veteran suicide rate since 2008 although we
02:52have spent literally billions of dollars on that. So when we talked about earlier we
02:55talked about other kinds of care we've talked about you know how can we do tap
03:00into research into maybe psychedelics or other things that help getting in more
03:03with our VSOs and our nonprofits to actually make a difference here. I think this
03:08is something we've got to have where we sometimes get caught up in the overall
03:12scheme of the VA believing that the VA unfortunately being on the hill is
03:16something that is manipulated or brought back into a certain way that is special.
03:22We're special in the sense that we get to treat the veteran of the United States.
03:26It is the most precious gift that we have but we're not unique in health care. We
03:30experience the same issues that all of health care that we got to speak about
03:33earlier and we're going to make sure just as every other health care
03:36organization goes through this kind of look in reorganization of their
03:39facilities they do the same thing. I appreciate that you're focused on that
03:44very much. Can you go back to the reduction in force though and tell me how
03:49much how much do you expect the reduction in force to be retirements or early
03:53retirements versus separations? We're seeing a good bit of that right now and in
03:58the sense you as you always have some we can't that's one of the things that I've
04:02had I got accused of it there and from the cuts that we had that somebody had not
04:08been able to get their next appointment and the doctor had actually just retired out and they
04:11had just bringing in the new doctor. That's not only any reduction in force
04:15that's just a simple matter of attrition in in the hospitals. So some of that
04:19will be taken care of some have taken the early retirement possibilities which
04:22has been a program that I think has worked in a great deal. So a lot of some of
04:28that will be you know normal attrition like that and also the
04:31incentivized attrition. I'm almost out of time I want to ask you really
04:35quickly to reviewing the situation that you inherited. The Biden
04:39administration's 2025 budget was was misleading as you know they
04:43misrepresented the budget shortfall that they created. Congress closed the
04:48immediate six billion dollar shortfall in March but are there still budgetary
04:53problems that we have to clean up? I think that's what we're trying to work
04:56through right now. I promise what's interesting is is I promised in my
05:00confirmation you I think you remember maybe you and I had this
05:02conversation. I was not going to come to this committee or even send you
05:05information in which I can't give you the either the information because it
05:09was not ready yet or it was not we weren't comfortable where the numbers
05:12are. The same thing applies to a lot of the questions I've got here today. As we
05:16move through these processes we're going to make sure that we give the
05:19information we're working through a budget process right now that doesn't
05:22come and surprise you in a political way at the end of the year. So I think
05:27that's why the president and his budget which is very favorable to the VA in
05:31looking at what we need to do is something that we can then build on
05:34and give you more information as we go. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank
05:37you. I yield back. Thank you.