Lawmakers Grill VA Officials On Effect From Cuts In Republican Budget On Quality Of Care

5 months ago

During a House Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, lawmakers questioned officials about cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Transcript

00:00I yield to the ranking member. Thank you, Chair. Ms. Serrett, I want to follow up again with you.

00:05The Eight Corner staff have been meeting routinely with Mark Engelbaum, the Assistant Secretary for

00:10HR, and our staff has requested a detailed breakdown of data on employees who have left

00:14the VA since January through the DRP, VERA, or natural attrition. Unfortunately, the numbers

00:21that VA provided as a follow-up fall woefully below the level of detail requested. Are you

00:27able to produce by location, occupation, detailed data on the number of employees

00:31who have taken the DRP, who have taken VERA, who've resigned, who've retired? Are you

00:38able to get that information for us? Ranking Member Ramirez, yes, I can get that information.

00:42Great. What about the number of job offers that have been declined by applicants since

00:46January of this year? Is that a data point that you have the capability of pulling?

00:49So, Ranking Member Ramirez, our talent acquisition system is USA Staffing, and it

00:55does capture some information on declinations, but it may not provide the

01:00detailed information that you're seeking. Okay. So, please provide me everything that

01:03in fact is being collected. And Ms. Serrett, can you please commit to working with us on

01:07providing the detailed data in a reasonable time? Ranking Member Ramirez, I welcome the

01:14opportunity to work with this group. Great. Thank you, Ms. Serrett. I don't imagine you will

01:17have this number on top of your head, because I'm sure there's a lot going on and a lot of

01:21information you have to try to memorize for these hearings. But I want you to bring an answer back

01:27for the record. How many veteran care appointments at the VA have been canceled since January of this

01:33year due to staffing shortages? If you have the answer, I'll take it now. If not,

01:38Ranking Member Ramirez, I do not. I don't know if Mr. Perry does.

01:41Do you have that? No? We do not, but we can take that.

01:44If you can come back with it, I would really appreciate knowing how many

01:47veteran appointments have been canceled. I'm going to leave it at that. Mr. Steele,

01:51I really wanted to ask you a question, but I'm hopeful others can. Thank you.

01:56The chair now recognizes Mr. Conaway for two minutes.

02:02I thought we were changing the order, Madam Chair.

02:06Thank you for recognizing me, Madam Chair. Just before I get to one of my questions, I just want

02:11to make a comment about H.R.1, the big accrual bill, as I call it. I'm very concerned that medical

02:20students going to medical school, very expensive process, that there's now a cap on those loans

02:29that students may give. And it's going to particularly be a problem for those students

02:34who don't come from wealthy families, where they're going to have to try to figure out

02:38how to make up that gap. What do you think that this issue of cutting support for medical education,

02:51how do you think that's going to impact the VA? You've trained most of the physicians in the country.

02:58So, Dr. Conway, I would say that when we talk about three R's, there are also other incentives,

03:05and you speak to scholarship programs, debt reduction programs. And if you look at the job

03:10opportunity announcements that are posted for the VA, many of our Veterans Health Administration

03:14job opportunity announcement include those benefits. And I'll ask Mr. Perry to...

03:19I'm going to reclaim my time because I want to get another question in. Pardon me for that,

03:23but I must push on. In 2024, the VA reported a loss of 608 physicians. So,

03:31just a series of questions. You may not have them, but I want to get them in

03:35before my time is up. How many job postings does the VA currently have for physicians?

03:41Do you know by chance? If you don't know off the top of your head, I'll just leave them for the record.

03:45How many physicians has the VA onboarded in the past month? What is the VA doing to attract and retain

03:51physicians? And why do you think we're seeing such a loss in physicians? And I'll leave it at that.

04:00If you have questions, any of those, I see my time is up, but I look forward to your answer offline.

04:05We're happy to get those.

04:06The gentleman's time has expired. The chair now recognizes Mr. Kennedy for two minutes.

04:10Thank you. I want to just go back to the secretary and what he said to this committee in May,

04:18that the VA would maintain mission essential jobs like doctors, nurses, and claims processors.

04:26According to the VA's monthly workforce dashboard, estimated losses for fiscal year 25 are 1,720

04:36registered nurses, 604 physicians, and 1,081 veteran claim examiners. These are mission critical roles,

04:48which run directly against Secretary Collins points that current and future cuts to the VA

04:55won't impact the delivery of care and benefits. As an occupational therapist, I've seen firsthand

05:03on the ground what happens when healthcare facilities are short-staffed and that healthcare is not

05:11provided to individuals. Right now, our veterans are being provided care

05:17by American heroes on the ground in these facilities. But you know what? They're exhausted.

05:23And not because they don't care, but because they ultimately are having trouble keeping up

05:30because they're getting cut in staffing. So when that happens in our VA, it's our veterans that are

05:37paying the price. And so even though we've been told mission critical employees aren't being cut,

05:43evidence on paper is that, in fact, there's a different story. We have credibility issues at

05:50the VA and with this administration happening right now. These cuts are impacting veteran care,

05:57and veterans should not have to wait longer or see fewer specialists or receive delayed benefits. As

06:05members of this committee, we have a sacred responsibility to uphold this nation's promise

06:09to our veterans. These cuts are not only short-sighted, they're un-American. I yield back.

06:18Mr. Steele and Dr. Elliott, thank you to each of you for coming to testify today.

06:22The solution is not just identifying weak policies, but following through with the guardrails

06:26that ensure effective oversight. It is clear more attention needs to be focused on ensuring the VA is

06:31following Congress's intention when paying these incentives. The fact that we are still having a

06:36conversation on this issue after more than a decade since the OIG's 2017 report on improper

06:43bonus payments indicates we must do something different. It does not take a rocket scientist

06:47to figure out that providing quality and safe patient care is a better use of tax dollars and

06:52accounting mistakes. These bonuses, when used correctly, enable the VA to pay attractive salaries

06:57to valuable clinical staff and other VA employees who serve our veterans. These incentive payments should

07:03go to staff dedicated to providing world-class care for our veterans. When the VA cannot retain its good

07:08employees or recruit talented staff, patient care is the first to suffer. I've seen this firsthand as

07:13a nurse practitioner. I will not allow that to happen while I am chairwoman of the subcommittee.

07:18I'm encouraged the OIG identified better documentation as a means of improving the bonus payment

07:23processes as well. Aside from the waste stemming from the improper payments, it is not possible to

07:28conduct a thorough review of where processes went wrong when there is no paper trail. That's why

07:33I was happy to vote with my House colleagues yesterday for Senate Bill 423, the Protecting

07:37Regular Order for Veterans, or PRO Act. This bipartisan bill would provide additional guard

07:42wheels on incentive payments paid to members of the Senior Executive Service, and I hope the VA will

07:46take them seriously. I'm looking forward to further collaboration with Secretary Collins and the

07:51Trump Administration to assist with our oversight efforts, and I'm grateful for the clarity that

07:55today's testimony offers. Ranking Member Ramirez, do you have any closing remarks?

08:00Secretary Collins- Thank you, Chairwoman. World-class care can't be achieved when you've lost 1,720

08:08registered nurses. It can't be achieved when 1,147 medical support assistant staff leave, or 604

08:17physicians leave, and when asked why they're leaving, they say lack of trust and confidence in senior

08:22leaders. The information contained in VA's workforce dashboard is critical to our oversight and to

08:28showing the public the true picture of what is happening at the VA under Secretary Collins.

08:33It is hard to call us liars and say our claims are a hoax when we have the data from VA to backup

08:38concerns that veteran care and benefits are being impacted under Collins' leadership. The information

08:44for the public that is listening can be accessed at va.gov backslash employee backslash workforce dash dashboard.

08:53I urge everyone watching this hearing to go now and review the data and make a judgment for yourself on

08:59how this administration's actions have and will continue to impact world-class care for our veterans.

09:06We know that this administration has a history of deleting or hiding files and tampering with

09:13information they don't agree with. So to ensure that these documents remain a part of the public record

09:19and are not deleted, removed, or hidden, I request unanimous consent to enter issues 1 through 26 of VA's

09:28workforce dashboard into the record. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you, Chairwoman. And with that,

09:33I yield back. Thank you, Ranking Member, and thank you all for being here today. Ms. Therritt, Mr. Perry,

09:41Mr. Steele, Dr. Elliott, I know you all took time out of your busy schedules, and I appreciate that

09:46I'm sure you were prepared to discuss the real issues at the VA, including the title of our subcommittee,

09:51which, just as a reminder, was counting the money, preventing fraud and abuse in the VA's bonus payment

09:57practices for VA employees. I appreciate your insight on the issue that why we called this hearing today.

10:02As a Navy veteran and a nurse practitioner, I know how critical it is for the VA to provide consistent,

10:08high-quality care to those who have served. I'm married to a veteran. I'm the mom to future veterans.

10:14I represent tens of thousands of veterans. My own parents are veterans, so it is an issue near and dear to my heart and to my district.

10:21I'm encouraged that the VA has decided against large-scale layoffs and is instead taking a more

10:27thoughtful and measured approach to improving operations. I also worked at the VA for several

10:32years or for several months as a nurse practitioner. It was a short time because I'm a geriatric nurse

10:36practitioner and couldn't utilize my geriatric skill base as much as I wanted to. But I remember that there

10:42were a lot of really good people doing really hard work. The physicians, the doctors and nurses,

10:48the pharmacists, the allied health professionals, the people who were in one building taking care of

10:53people who walked through our front door. I also remember on my lunch break, I would take walks and

10:57see buildings full of other people that didn't provide patient care. I didn't know what they did,

11:03but I knew where I was called to work and where I was able to touch patients and to impact lives of

11:08veterans. So I think there is room, just as this was before my time in politics, just looking at what that

11:15facility looked like, knowing that there was room to probably downscale. I want to make sure that

11:19our best resources are going to the patient care. But reducing 30,000 positions through attrition

11:26rather than eliminating clinical roles is a more reasonable path forward, and I know that's what the

11:30secretary is focused on doing. I support efforts to streamline the department, and I give more

11:35decision-making authority to local medical center directors who are closest to the veterans they serve.

11:40Decentralizing operations can help VA facilities respond more quickly to local needs and improve overall

11:45outcomes for patients. At the same time, I'm closely monitoring how these changes may impact support

11:51staff who play a critical role in ensuring providers can focus on delivering care. I believe

11:56restructuring can be positive, but only if it's done transparently, with input from frontline workers

12:01and full oversight from Congress. The lack of clarity around some of the VA's reorganization efforts is

12:06concerning, and I will continue to push for more communication and accountability. Congress must

12:11be a partner in the process, not an afterthought, and the VA leadership must work collaboratively to

12:16keep veterans and employees informed. I will continue advocating for investments in VA services that

12:21prioritize patient care, benefits, delivery, and support for the dedicated workforce. Ultimately,

12:28this is not a partisan issue. This is about keeping our promises to those who've worn the uniform.

12:32Veterans deserve a VA that serves them efficiently, compassionately, and without disruption.

12:39Again, thank you all for being here today. I ask unanimous consent that all members shall have five

12:43legislative days on which to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material.

12:48Hearing no objection, so ordered, this hearing is now adjourned.

Lawmakers Grill VA Officials On Effect From Cuts In Republican Budget On Quality Of Care

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