Former Consultant Doug Collins, President Trump’s nominee to steer the Veterans Affairs Division, instructed lawmakers in a affirmation listening to on Tuesday that he would defend a program that permits veterans to hunt well being providers outdoors the V.A. medical system.
That program, launched in Mr. Trump’s first time period, permits extra veterans who would wish to journey longer distances to a V.A. facility to obtain main care and psychological well being providers outdoors the company’s system, a serious shift.
Republicans have been important of bureaucratic procedures that they are saying deprive veterans of entry to extra handy care outdoors of V.A. amenities, violating the spirit of the initiative. Mr. Collins was repeatedly pressed on his dedication to this system throughout his greater than two-hour listening to earlier than the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
“The V.A. doesn’t exist in and of itself. It exists for the veteran,” Mr. Collins stated, including that he believed its intent “was to make it possible for the supply of providers to the veteran is firstly.”
Lawmakers additionally questioned Mr. Collins about how he would strategy a few of the division’s extra intractable points, akin to its extreme funds constraints and the necessity to overhaul outdated V.A. medical amenities.
Like lots of Mr. Trump’s different cupboard picks, together with Pete Hegseth, his nominee to supervise the Protection Division, Mr. Collins displays the brand new president’s priorities for company management in his second time period, with private loyalty central to every choice. Mr. Collins, a fast-talking Navy veteran, Air Drive Reserve chaplain and former pastor, performed a lead position defending Mr. Trump throughout his first impeachment investigation.
Mr. Collins is just not anticipated to face a tough affirmation struggle, partially due to the bipartisan and apolitical nature of a lot of the division’s work managing a sprawling well being system and veterans’ advantages. Mr. Collins’s listening to on Tuesday lacked the partisan tensions that boiled over throughout latest affirmation hearings for Mr. Hegseth and a few of Mr. Trump’s different cupboard picks. Some Democrats on the panel stated that they appeared ahead to working with him.
Dr. David Shulkin, the previous V.A. secretary who was the lone Obama administration holdover in Mr. Trump’s first-term cupboard earlier than being pushed out of the job, stated in an interview that Mr. Collins would possible inherit many elements of the agenda of his predecessor, Denis McDonough.
“As a result of the problems the V.A. offers with are systemic and complicated, and sadly the identical ones that had been there when the final secretary was in,” Dr. Shulkin stated.
Mr. Collins is in some methods an uncommon alternative. Earlier V.A. secretaries have had lengthy navy careers, or held senior roles on the Protection Division or the Veterans Affairs Division itself. Within the Home, Mr. Collins didn’t serve on the Veterans’ Affairs or Armed Providers Committees.
As a member of the Air Drive Reserve, Mr. Collins deployed to Iraq, visiting with injured service members at Balad Air Base.
Even along with his zealous protection of Mr. Trump throughout his first time period, Mr. Collins nurtured a popularity for working with Democrats, coauthoring criminal justice reform legislation with Consultant Hakeem Jeffries of New York, now the highest Home Democrat.
A few of Mr. Collins’s duties on the Veterans Affairs Division could contain divisive well being care insurance policies. A second Trump administration could search to reverse a Biden administration rule permitting the division to offer abortions to veterans when a being pregnant resulted from rape or incest, or when the lifetime of a pregnant girl is in danger.
“We are going to take a look at this rule and see if it complies with the regulation,” Mr. Collins stated on Tuesday.
However a lot of Mr. Collins’s portfolio would contain challenges which have trailed previous secretaries of each Republican and Democratic administrations, together with behavioral well being entry.
A report published by the department last month confirmed that there had been greater than 6,400 suicides amongst veterans in 2022, fewer than 12 of the 14 prior years however a slight enhance from the 12 months earlier than.
Dr. Shulkin stated that atop Mr. Collins’s record of priorities can be a budget deficit that has precipitated the division to gradual hiring. That has risked the V.A.’s capability to look after the nearly 900,000 veterans introduced into the system by means of laws signed by Mr. Biden that expanded medical advantages for veterans uncovered to toxins from burning pits of trash on navy bases.
Democrats on the panel raised issues about potential cuts to the V.A.’s funds that Congress may search this 12 months; how Mr. Trump’s Elon Musk-led cost-slashing effort may goal the company; and what impression a federal hiring freeze ordered by Mr. Trump may have on an already overburdened work power.
“We’re not going to sacrifice the veterans’ advantages to do a funds,” Mr. Collins instructed Senator Elissa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan.
Mr. Collins was repeatedly requested on Tuesday about his views of personal medical look after veterans, which typically must be approved by the department. Senate Republicans had expressed concerns that beneath the Biden administration, some veterans had been denied protection whereas looking for to reap the benefits of that choice.
They sought assurances on Tuesday from Mr. Collins that he would defend it. Senator Tim Sheehy, Republican of Montana, stated that some veterans in his state confronted a greater than five-hour drive to achieve the closest V.A. facility.
“So I need to make it possible for we really take motion to make sure that veterans can go into the group and get care they want,” he stated.
Critics have stated {that a} program that encourages veterans to go outdoors the V.A. system may compromise its integrity, and result in worse outcomes.
“There’s this ‘grass is greener on the opposite facet of the sphere’ sensibility to it,” Joe Plenzler, a retired Marine Corps officer and veterans’ advocate, stated. “What the info present is that when veterans get care on the V.A., they’re happier with it and get better-quality care.”
Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont unbiased, stated that veterans in his state often got here away glad with their department-administered care.
However he famous that the prices of veteran care locally had exploded from $8 billion to extra $30 billion between 2014 and 2024, that means there was not sufficient cash to fund each a robust V.A. well being system and good well being protection outdoors of it.
“What the talk comes all the way down to is just not whether or not anyone ought to be capable of entry group care, however the place are we going to place our assets?” Mr. Sanders stated. “Are we going to permit the V.A. to wither on the vine?”
Like previous secretaries, Mr. Collins can even must are likely to aging V.A. facilities with outdated medical gear and record-keeping techniques. Lawmakers on Tuesday famous that veterans typically needed to name particular V.A. clinics themselves to schedule appointments. The division oversees roughly 1,200 sites throughout the nation that serve nearly 9 million veterans.
Senator Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat, instructed him of pipes that had burst in a post-World Struggle II-era Manchester, N.H., facility, inflicting the middle to shut for months, delaying surgical procedures.
Mr. Collins stated that renovating the amenities would contain a “bureaucratic course of,” with “main work simply to carry the pc techniques.”
“Building points are going to be certainly one of our hardest,” he added.
