'Toxic, Unpredictable & Hostile Place To Work': Brownley Shreds Trump & Secretary Collins Over VA Layoffs

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing in July, Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA) spoke about layoffs at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Chairwoman Miller-Meeks.

00:04At the outset of today's hearing, I'd like to set the scene a bit by describing the situation

00:09in which veterans and the VA currently find themselves.

00:13First, veterans across the country are losing access to VA health care due to numerous actions

00:20taken by the Trump administration.

00:22Why is this happening?

00:24With each passing day, VA is becoming a less and less desirable place to work.

00:31Upon taking office, President Trump ordered a government-wide hiring freeze.

00:36The haphazard implementation at VA meant that essential occupations initially were not exempted

00:44from the freeze.

00:46Job offers for key employees who were already in the onboarding process were rescinded, then

00:52reinstated.

00:53A flip-flopping that led many would-be hires to run the other way.

00:59Less than a month after that, VA terminated nearly 2,400 probationary employees.

01:07While some have since been rehired, they may be terminated again after pending lawsuits have

01:15resolved.

01:16Many opted not to return after being offered their jobs back.

01:21Then, as a result of the Trump administration's returning to office policy, tens of thousands

01:28of VA employees who had been hired into fully remote positions were directed to report to

01:35offices that were ill-equipped and ill-suited to accommodate them with little consideration

01:41for the effect it would have on their productivity or the quality of care delivery.

01:47We heard a week ago that while VA is no longer planning to pursue a large-scale reduction in force,

01:55or RIF, it still anticipates losing nearly 30,000 employees by September 30th.

02:03That's about 6% of VA's overall workforce.

02:08This is happening through DRP, the Deferred Resignation Buyout Program, and VERA, the Voluntary Early Retirement Authority,

02:18as well as employees choosing to resign or retire without any incentives.

02:24As this chart shows behind me here, as of May 31st, 2025, nearly 22,000 employees had separated

02:36from the Veterans Health Administration.

02:39While about half have been replaced as a whole, VHA has lost 10,310 more employees than it had

02:48hired so far this fiscal year.

02:52The Secretary has repeatedly claimed that veterans will not lose access to health care as a result

02:59of the Department's ongoing restructuring process.

03:04Maybe you're thinking that these losses are mostly non-essential occupations at VHA.

03:10But that is just simply not true.

03:14Losses of essential frontline employees are occurring at VA medical facilities nationwide.

03:21As the second chart shows, VHA is currently operating at a loss of nearly 3,000 mission-critical employees

03:33since the start of this fiscal year.

03:36This is after making significant gains in the overall number of frontline employees during the

03:42same period last fiscal year.

03:46Those new hires were helping VA deliver record numbers of appointments and serve the influx

03:53of new enrollees that are coming into VA as a result of the PACT Act.

03:59Where are the losses of essential employees most significant?

04:06Medical workers, food service workers, nurses, physicians, social workers, employees that VA

04:14medical facilities simply cannot do without.

04:18At the CBOC that serves my constituents in Ventura, California, seven out of 12 mental health

04:25providers have left.

04:27This is driving up wait times for mental health appointments.

04:30As of Friday, the new patient wait time for a mental health appointment was 101 days.

04:37Now maybe you're thinking to yourself, those veterans are eligible for community care.

04:42And while that is true, they need VA staff to coordinate their care in the community.

04:48And as this chart refers to, shows that we are down more than 1,147 medical support assistance

04:59nationwide since the start of the fiscal year.

05:03Those are the staff who help veterans find community providers and schedule their appointments.

05:11It doesn't matter that so-called mission-critical VHA staff were not eligible for the DRP and

05:18VERA separation incentives.

05:21They are leaving anyway because VA has become a toxic, unpredictable and hostile place to work.

05:28We are kidding ourselves if we think no rift is the end of it and that the loss of employees

05:34will stop at 30,000 folks.

05:37These losses will continue to grow.

05:40As long as VA's workforce continues to suffer, all aspects of VA care, including community

05:47care, will suffer.

05:49Second, on July 4th, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Betrayal Bill into law.

05:57By most analysis, this law and its $1 trillion cut to Medicaid will have a wide-ranging impact

06:05on the healthcare landscape in the United States.

06:10Researchers at the University of North Carolina have identified 338 rural hospitals that are

06:18already at risk for closure.

06:21Future loss of Medicaid coverage will elevate the risk of financial distress for hospitals,

06:28long-term care facilities, and other providers, further reducing veterans' access to care.

06:37We cannot have a conversation about specialty care in the community without acknowledging

06:42both the strain that is currently being placed on VA's healthcare system and the strain

06:48that is about to be placed on non-VA providers.

06:53We should be shoring up VA care and making sure that there is capacity in the community when

06:59veterans need specialty care in the community.

07:03Instead, under this administration, we are seeing a chaotic approach to delivering veterans'

07:10healthcare that undercuts VA's internal capacity, shifts more and more care to the community,

07:18and leaves veterans and VA employees in the lurch.

07:23Insisting that those actions will not impact veterans' healthcare does not make it so.

07:29And ignoring the unforeseen consequences of this administration's actions will not make

07:35them go away.

07:38As I have always acknowledged, VA will always need to offer some level of community care because

07:44they can't do it all.

07:46However, for many veterans, VA is the right place for them to receive care.

07:53They know their provider understands their military service and what it means to have served their

07:58country.

07:59They know they will receive world-class healthcare backed up by world-class research.

08:06They know they won't have to explain to their VA provider what a presumptive condition is

08:12or their experience with military sexual trauma or how their service impacted their mental health.

08:21We also lack oversight of the care that veterans receive in the community.

08:26We know wait times for VA appointments because VA publishes them.

08:32Community providers are not required to report their wait times or how long it will actually

08:36take a veteran to be seen.

08:40We know that VA providers have received training on military cultural competencies, suicide prevention

08:47practices, opioid safety, and many others because VA requires them to receive such trainings

08:56and reports how they have completed them.

09:00Community providers are not required to take all of these trainings and veterans are not informed

09:05about whether their community providers have voluntarily taken such trainings.

09:12Based on the testimony from our witnesses, I think we can all agree that the administration

09:18of VA's community care program needs reform.

09:23Unfortunately, we find ourselves convened for an oversight hearing where there are no VA officials

09:29present to respond to questions about the barriers and challenges highlighted by our witnesses.

09:36I think that does them a disservice, and I would respectfully ask the chairwoman to invite department witnesses

09:44to future oversight hearings so that we can have a more robust discussion about what is working

09:51well, what isn't, and how to fix it.

09:55And with that, Madam Chair, I yield back.

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