Jim Banks Fires Back At Democrats At Hearing With Doug Collins: 'Obviously A Scare Tactic'

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At today's Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing, Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) questioned VA Secretary Doug Collins.

Transcript

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.

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