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Mark Alford Questions VA Sec. Doug Collins With Constituent's Concerns About Veteran Healthcare
Forbes Breaking News
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5/20/2025
During a House Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) questioned VA Secretary Doug Collins about veteran healthcare.
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00:00
Thank you, Mr. Chair and Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, and congratulations to Mr. Secretary.
00:09
Thank you for being here today.
00:11
The Department of Veterans Affairs has profound responsibility to those who have served our
00:15
great nation.
00:16
Missouri's 4th Congressional District is home to thousands of veterans, yet my district,
00:20
like many others, has heard too many stories of delayed care, bureaucratic obstacles, and
00:26
a system that sometimes feels more like an adversary than an ally.
00:32
In the golden age of America, I think the VA should be the gold standard of healthcare.
00:40
And I think you have the same vision, Mr. Secretary.
00:43
In our district, we pride ourselves on our constituent services, have a great team there.
00:49
We try to provide concierge service.
00:51
We look at people as clients, not just constituents.
00:56
Our lead caseworker there, her name is Grace Townsend, and she's a veteran.
01:00
And I have some questions that our staff wrote up here, but I came up here to be a voice for
01:04
my people, and I want to be a voice today for our chief caseworker, Grace Townsend.
01:11
She texted me a couple of questions to ask you.
01:13
Thank you, Grace.
01:14
Because she deals with this on the front line every day, sir.
01:18
I would love to know when he expects the backlog of disability claims to be worked up and caught
01:23
up.
01:24
Well, Grace, and I'll speak to your congressman as well, thank you.
01:27
One of the things is, as most of us know, 60% of your calls to your offices are constituent
01:31
for calls of the VA.
01:32
And I'm telling you up front, that's a failure on our part.
01:35
I don't make any excuse for that.
01:36
They should not have to call you to get the benefits they've earned.
01:39
To speak to Grace, we've dropped that almost 21% from 260,000 to right at 200,000 in the
01:46
last few months, and we're going to continue to see that go back down as we put resources
01:51
and time to where it needs to go, and we're going to see that go.
01:54
But also, one of the things that Grace would probably also ask about is, we do the wrong
01:57
metric sometimes, and that's the end of completion.
02:00
When do we actually finish it?
02:01
And right now, we're way over the target of where we need to be.
02:04
We're at about 135 days.
02:06
So as we get the backlog down, that frees up more time to then get onto the other claims
02:10
as we go.
02:11
Very good.
02:12
VA prescriptions are mailed to veterans with the U.S. Postal Service delays.
02:15
Is there a better way for veterans to get their medication?
02:19
There may be, and I think that's one of the things we're looking at in our overall projection
02:22
of care and how we do that.
02:23
I think this is something that the Congress has also looked at concerning basically how we
02:28
deal with our generation of prescription, how we actually cut our costs.
02:34
There's been some concern about the pharmacy benefit manager system.
02:37
There's also been some concerns about how we go about that.
02:39
It is something that's currently being looked at in our overall look at VHA.
02:42
Next question from Grace Townsend.
02:44
There's been a decline in receiving responses to congressional inquiries in a timely manner.
02:48
This kind of ties into the first question.
02:51
Liaisons are not returning responses in reasonable time frames.
02:54
What used to be a 30-day turnaround time is now between three and five months.
02:59
What do we do about it?
03:01
Well, we're going to, that's, I appreciate her bringing to that attention.
03:04
We're going to get, our staff is going to get with you afterwards, and I want to know
03:06
what's happening.
03:07
I want to know where she's sending the letters, and we're going to fix that.
03:09
And that applies to anybody on this, this dais.
03:12
If you're not getting timely response, I'm trying to right now rework our legislative affairs
03:17
group that is up here on the Hill.
03:19
It's something I promised in my confirmation hearing.
03:21
We're going to do that.
03:22
So we'll be happy to work with it and see what the problem is, and we'll make changes
03:25
where necessary.
03:26
With any potential cuts to employees, how many behavioral health providers could be
03:30
cut?
03:31
None.
03:32
I want more as I can get.
03:33
I think they're, but remember, one of the things we've talked about, not talked about
03:36
today is, in any discussion we've had, we've had over 300,000 positions that we've
03:40
exempted, and right now are currently hiring at the VA at any one time, and we need
03:45
as much, and especially in the area of mental health, behavioral health, and others, to help
03:49
us with our backlog, not just our backlog, but help us with our death by suicide issues,
03:55
our homelessness issues, and getting back to work issues.
03:58
We have a minute left.
03:59
Those are Grace's questions.
04:00
Mine is dealing with suicide.
04:02
I lost my best friend to suicide 14 years ago.
04:06
We continue to lose 6,400 veterans each year to suicide.
04:11
How do we change that?
04:13
Congressman, I'm sorry for your loss.
04:17
I have experienced a similar loss, but also been on the phone as my years of service in
04:21
the Air Force of actually talking to those veterans on the line who have come to that
04:25
point in life where they want to end their life, and that's a difficult place to be,
04:28
and it's not something, and we look back on it and say, how can we help?
04:31
And that's a very hard feeling for the families and others.
04:34
Here's the sad reality of what we're looking at right now, why we're going to start a different
04:37
approach in trying to get to as many people as we can.
04:40
In 2008, the number of suicides in this country by veterans have not really changed, 2008.
04:46
We're still at that 6,500 to about 6,900.
04:49
It's about 6,17, depending on how you want to look at the numbers, and yet in the past
04:53
few years, this body, and I appreciate the work, they spent $588 million on prevention
04:57
for suicide, but yet our numbers aren't changing.
05:00
We spent $2.3 billion on how do we actually take care of them, and then we do counseling
05:04
for those that are struggling.
05:05
But we're not changing, so I've instituted a new, we're looking at it completely different.
05:09
I'm talking to our folks in the field saying, how can we reach more people?
05:13
Because here's the disturbing fact for all of us on this dice, is that when they look
05:17
at that, that 17 number, half of those veterans who take the option of death by suicide have
05:22
never had a contact with the VA.
05:24
Never had a contact with the VA.
05:27
So that's why I'm going on podcasts, that's why we're going to any place we can, I'm going
05:30
to interviews, I'm going everywhere I can to encourage our veterans, please, please,
05:34
please reach out.
05:35
And if that's with VA, great, but I'm also encouraging all of our veterans to have the
05:39
resources to take care of their airmen, take care of their battle buddies, take care of
05:42
their wingmen, because we can't afford to lose one.
05:44
We're over time, Mr. Secretary, you have a big job ahead of you, but you're going to do great.
05:49
We're here for you.
05:50
Thank you, sir.
05:50
Thank you, sir.
05:51
I yield back.
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