Tommy Tuberville Asks Doug Collins: Why Is The VA Budget ‘Bloated’ Given The Stagnant Veteran Population?

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During a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing last week, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) questioned VA Secretary Doug Collins about the department’s budget.

Transcript

00:00Thank you Secretary Collins for being here and thanks to the veterans that are

00:03here today and I want to pass on the thanks from the 400,000 veterans state

00:09of Alabama. They have for the first time in just two months have seen progress at

00:13a lot of VA's in my state. We've seen a record number of disability claims

00:19processed, employees finally returning to work, and an end to the DEI programs like

00:25treatment for gender dysphoria. You know the days of business as we all are

00:30noticing and hearing today are over and are finally our veterans are being put

00:34first. And let's talk about the budget a little bit Mr. Secretary. Over the last

00:3910 years the VA's budget has more than doubled and the number of employees that

00:43the VA has increased more than a hundred thousand but the number of veterans in

00:49our country is declining and a and VA enrollment has changed. The VA has

00:54become a bloated bureaucracy. I think we'll all or most of us will agree with

00:58that. Secretary Collins, why has the VA budget become so bloated over the last

01:0210 years if the veteran population has remained stagnant? Senator, I appreciate

01:08the question because there's also another number that we're leaving out there as

01:11well is that veteran population of actually enrolled in the VA has stayed

01:14steady at 9.1 million. No matter and again we can try and talk about numbers all we

01:19want here but it's been 9.1 million steady for the last you know 10 years we

01:23look at this. So we're also losing veterans as a total population we're

01:27also not gaining in the enrollment of the VA. What we tend to forget and some

01:33people say well we've had an increase in in different programs we have but we

01:36also lose about 400,000 veterans a year to death you know natural causes. So I

01:40mean it's a it's a priority of function. So what we're looking at here is

01:44there's been programs that have been increased there's been a mandatory

01:46spending increase and there's been the things that we look at. I think what we're

01:50actually looking at here though is there's been a decision that we want

01:53to that it's easier to just put money and people toward issues without looking

01:58at is there any cost or is there any real-world aspect of that. Is there a

02:02return on investment? I think that as you talk to veterans and I go out and talk to

02:06the veterans one of the things that we're having is is that those amount of

02:09numbers and people aren't equating into how we can actually function. I mean I

02:15appreciate the ranking member service. I appreciate we just disagree on this that

02:19that when we have doctors and nurses that are and other clinicians who are

02:23not actually you know being clinicians and not reading you know charts or doing

02:27anything else they're actually you know formulating policy or doing

02:30administrative work. When I have these many folks that need to be more in the

02:34clinics then we're not helping the veteran. That's just something that's not

02:37happening. When you're taking time to process disability claims that went up

02:41then also not having the proper you know computer the AI technology to help us

02:46and do that but also putting out the issues that are slowing up and then also

02:52we get in our own way because we're such a bureaucratic organization we have rules

02:56over rules over rules. I had a gentleman tell me just the other day and this is

03:01again I've seen this before from my own daughter he actually said that I'm a he's a

03:05double amputee he actually said I have to go to the VA if I need a new

03:09wheelchair I have to go to my primary care a PT and an OT before I can get a

03:13seating clinic appointment. Explain to me why we're having to go through that

03:17kind of mess to get straight to a seating clinic which we know where they need to

03:21be to start with. Thank you. I often hear a lot a lot about the large amounts of

03:27paperwork and administrative burden VA doctors are forced to navigate when seeing

03:32patients. This leads to VA doctors seeing less patients per day. Where do you see the

03:38opportunity to reduce all these remin administrative processes? I think

03:43there's plenty of opportunities there and again this has nothing to do with

03:45employees has nothing to do with money counts it's simply are we doing it most

03:48efficiently in the in the process. I've made a statement to every hospital that I

03:53go to every clinic that I go to every veteran benefit office that I go to to say

03:57this tell me what is if you had take I use a proverbial ten sheets of paper if you

04:03have ten sheets of paper to get a veteran the services that they need or ten sheets

04:07of paper to do the next thing. Can you do it with five? I mean there I'll show you

04:11an example to apply for benefits in our VBA there's a sheet on there that I kid

04:18that is on there that has a full listing of the veteran as far as just basic

04:22information about their military service and this for older veterans could be a

04:27problem actually to go back and remember dates. If the veterans serve then we

04:31could use that with their name their social security number their DOD or the ID

04:34number using their DD 214 we can gain all the records that we need to confirm

04:38that they're apart but yet we're making them go through this process of filling

04:42out a form that many of our veterans who may or may not have computer capabilities

04:46are having trouble with so it makes it difficult. I hear from some of the

04:52supervisors in in the VA's and they say we use two coding systems one hospital

04:56coding system that is very very effective and the other one is from the WHO which is a

05:02useless piece of crap this comes from them why do we use both of those? That's

05:09something I'm looking at now again to try and streamline the issues that we have in

05:12our system so that again it is interesting a lot of times we end up

05:16talking about processes and plans here and not talking about actual care and

05:21actually what the veteran experience is when they go in. Most of the veterans I

05:25will tell you a lot of times they actually get to when they get through the

05:27labyrinth of stuff to get there they're happy with the service that they get

05:30they're they're glad that they're getting the service and they appreciate

05:33that they enjoy the choice but when we actually put restrictions on our

05:36employees and put restrictions on veterans getting in it just makes it all

05:40the worse. Thank you. Thank you Senator Murray. Thank you.

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