Mark Alford Questions VA Sec. Doug Collins With Constituent's Concerns About Veteran Healthcare

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During a House Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) questioned VA Secretary Doug Collins about veteran healthcare.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chair and Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, and congratulations to Mr. Secretary.

00:09Thank you for being here today.

00:11The Department of Veterans Affairs has profound responsibility to those who have served our

00:15great nation.

00:16Missouri's 4th Congressional District is home to thousands of veterans, yet my district,

00:20like many others, has heard too many stories of delayed care, bureaucratic obstacles, and

00:26a system that sometimes feels more like an adversary than an ally.

00:32In the golden age of America, I think the VA should be the gold standard of healthcare.

00:40And I think you have the same vision, Mr. Secretary.

00:43In our district, we pride ourselves on our constituent services, have a great team there.

00:49We try to provide concierge service.

00:51We look at people as clients, not just constituents.

00:56Our lead caseworker there, her name is Grace Townsend, and she's a veteran.

01:00And I have some questions that our staff wrote up here, but I came up here to be a voice for

01:04my people, and I want to be a voice today for our chief caseworker, Grace Townsend.

01:11She texted me a couple of questions to ask you.

01:13Thank you, Grace.

01:14Because she deals with this on the front line every day, sir.

01:18I would love to know when he expects the backlog of disability claims to be worked up and caught

01:23up.

01:24Well, Grace, and I'll speak to your congressman as well, thank you.

01:27One of the things is, as most of us know, 60% of your calls to your offices are constituent

01:31for calls of the VA.

01:32And I'm telling you up front, that's a failure on our part.

01:35I don't make any excuse for that.

01:36They should not have to call you to get the benefits they've earned.

01:39To speak to Grace, we've dropped that almost 21% from 260,000 to right at 200,000 in the

01:46last few months, and we're going to continue to see that go back down as we put resources

01:51and time to where it needs to go, and we're going to see that go.

01:54But also, one of the things that Grace would probably also ask about is, we do the wrong

01:57metric sometimes, and that's the end of completion.

02:00When do we actually finish it?

02:01And right now, we're way over the target of where we need to be.

02:04We're at about 135 days.

02:06So as we get the backlog down, that frees up more time to then get onto the other claims

02:10as we go.

02:11Very good.

02:12VA prescriptions are mailed to veterans with the U.S. Postal Service delays.

02:15Is there a better way for veterans to get their medication?

02:19There may be, and I think that's one of the things we're looking at in our overall projection

02:22of care and how we do that.

02:23I think this is something that the Congress has also looked at concerning basically how we

02:28deal with our generation of prescription, how we actually cut our costs.

02:34There's been some concern about the pharmacy benefit manager system.

02:37There's also been some concerns about how we go about that.

02:39It is something that's currently being looked at in our overall look at VHA.

02:42Next question from Grace Townsend.

02:44There's been a decline in receiving responses to congressional inquiries in a timely manner.

02:48This kind of ties into the first question.

02:51Liaisons are not returning responses in reasonable time frames.

02:54What used to be a 30-day turnaround time is now between three and five months.

02:59What do we do about it?

03:01Well, we're going to, that's, I appreciate her bringing to that attention.

03:04We're going to get, our staff is going to get with you afterwards, and I want to know

03:06what's happening.

03:07I want to know where she's sending the letters, and we're going to fix that.

03:09And that applies to anybody on this, this dais.

03:12If you're not getting timely response, I'm trying to right now rework our legislative affairs

03:17group that is up here on the Hill.

03:19It's something I promised in my confirmation hearing.

03:21We're going to do that.

03:22So we'll be happy to work with it and see what the problem is, and we'll make changes

03:25where necessary.

03:26With any potential cuts to employees, how many behavioral health providers could be

03:30cut?

03:31None.

03:32I want more as I can get.

03:33I think they're, but remember, one of the things we've talked about, not talked about

03:36today is, in any discussion we've had, we've had over 300,000 positions that we've

03:40exempted, and right now are currently hiring at the VA at any one time, and we need

03:45as much, and especially in the area of mental health, behavioral health, and others, to help

03:49us with our backlog, not just our backlog, but help us with our death by suicide issues,

03:55our homelessness issues, and getting back to work issues.

03:58We have a minute left.

03:59Those are Grace's questions.

04:00Mine is dealing with suicide.

04:02I lost my best friend to suicide 14 years ago.

04:06We continue to lose 6,400 veterans each year to suicide.

04:11How do we change that?

04:13Congressman, I'm sorry for your loss.

04:17I have experienced a similar loss, but also been on the phone as my years of service in

04:21the Air Force of actually talking to those veterans on the line who have come to that

04:25point in life where they want to end their life, and that's a difficult place to be,

04:28and it's not something, and we look back on it and say, how can we help?

04:31And that's a very hard feeling for the families and others.

04:34Here's the sad reality of what we're looking at right now, why we're going to start a different

04:37approach in trying to get to as many people as we can.

04:40In 2008, the number of suicides in this country by veterans have not really changed, 2008.

04:46We're still at that 6,500 to about 6,900.

04:49It's about 6,17, depending on how you want to look at the numbers, and yet in the past

04:53few years, this body, and I appreciate the work, they spent $588 million on prevention

04:57for suicide, but yet our numbers aren't changing.

05:00We spent $2.3 billion on how do we actually take care of them, and then we do counseling

05:04for those that are struggling.

05:05But we're not changing, so I've instituted a new, we're looking at it completely different.

05:09I'm talking to our folks in the field saying, how can we reach more people?

05:13Because here's the disturbing fact for all of us on this dice, is that when they look

05:17at that, that 17 number, half of those veterans who take the option of death by suicide have

05:22never had a contact with the VA.

05:24Never had a contact with the VA.

05:27So that's why I'm going on podcasts, that's why we're going to any place we can, I'm going

05:30to interviews, I'm going everywhere I can to encourage our veterans, please, please,

05:34please reach out.

05:35And if that's with VA, great, but I'm also encouraging all of our veterans to have the

05:39resources to take care of their airmen, take care of their battle buddies, take care of

05:42their wingmen, because we can't afford to lose one.

05:44We're over time, Mr. Secretary, you have a big job ahead of you, but you're going to do great.

05:49We're here for you.

05:50Thank you, sir.

05:51I yield back.

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