During a Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) criticized the Department of Veterans Affairs' failure to respond to his letters of inquiry.
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00:00Ranking member, Senator Blumenthal, for his opening remarks.
00:03Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank you, Senator Moran, for, again, bringing us together for the bipartisan work that you and I have done together.
00:14This committee has been more bipartisan than any in the United States Senate, so far as I'm concerned, and it will continue to be so in championing measures like the PAC Act.
00:30Which, Secretary Collins, by the way, I just noticed, is not mentioned once in your written testimony, which mystifies me.
00:43Let me say at the very outset, I'd like to enter a few items into the record.
00:49The first is an article published this morning by ProPublica, supported by hard evidence and in-depth conversations with VA staff.
00:58It outlines a number of examples of real-life impacts to veterans caused by the firings, freezes, and cuts in this administration.
01:08It also outlines disturbing warnings of what's to come, documents with recommendation from DOGE, the DOGE Tech Boys.
01:17I call them the DOGE dopes, that outline cutting 100,000 employees and closing as many as 17 VA hospitals.
01:27I'd also like to enter into the record a statement from Darren J. Pettit, President of the FG Local 0025.
01:36His statement is a summary of the dozens of impact statements from VA employees that were provided to my office this morning, and in addition, the New York Times article on mental health care,
01:52that are diminishing and degrading privacy available through tele-mental health care that is absolutely unacceptable.
02:02In Mr. Pettit's words, his statement represents, quote, the collective voices of frontline public servants who have endured significant and unjustified hardships,
02:15stemming from recent policy changes, management decisions, and failures to honor basic labor protections.
02:22Finally, I want to submit for the record an updated list of 41 requests for information and 19 letters of inquiry
02:33that have been sent to this administration without substantive response, any sufficient response, or any response at all,
02:46if that is okay, Mr. Chairman, without objection.
02:50Without objection? So ordered.
02:52We're here about accountability, which so far has been totally lacking.
02:57The absence of responses to our inquiries are simply unacceptable.
03:04You inherited, Mr. Secretary, a VA that was delivering a record amount of health care.
03:10Last year, wait times decreased, despite a record increase in new patient appointments.
03:17You claim the disability backlogs got worse, but the percentage of backlog claims actually is about the same, but increasing challenges in numbers.
03:28You inherited a VA that was setting new records for burials, and that is important to the service members, the families that sadly have to provide those burials.
03:51The VA has been delivering more care, the VA has been delivering more care, more services, more benefits to more veterans, and doing it faster than ever before when you took over.
04:00And that is in no way to deny the importance of improvement.
04:08Call it reform, call it revision, improvement is absolutely necessary, but it shouldn't be done with a chainsaw.
04:19The head, the head, the commander of the veterans of foreign wars came before us, and he drew this analogy.
04:30When he was wounded in combat, the surgeon used a scalpel.
04:36He took the shrapnel, he took the shrapnel out of his arm.
04:40He did not use a meat axe.
04:44He did not use a chainsaw.
04:46And that's the kind of improvement that we should work to achieve with the input of those skilled and dedicated caregivers who are working hard in the VA right now,
05:00a third of them veterans, thousands of them already fired, and others potentially losing their positions in the future.
05:12You've announced the cancellation of 800 contracts worth an alleged $2 billion, only to rescind that statement once the harmful impacts of the cancellations were made public, and we protested.
05:25You arbitrarily fired thousands of VA employees, including veterans crisis line employees, only to subsequently reinstate a number of them after public backlash, or after you learned that they were fired by mistake, and we protested.
05:46You've delayed the opening of facilities across the country, only to announce they'd open in phases because of insufficient staffing.
05:53You've equated them to restaurants.
05:56You claim that's how it's always been done, but that's not true.
06:01And so far as that 83,000 number is concerned, apparently, you want to go back to the 2019 numbers,
06:13because since then, some 80,000 VA workers have been added to the rolls.
06:23You should know two-thirds of them are healthcare workers.
06:29If you slash those healthcare workers, VA quality and access will diminish.
06:40A number of them are VBA claims processors, a third of them.
06:47If you slash them, the times for PAC Act benefits will be delayed.
06:57I think that oversight is absolutely necessary and improvement is always possible, but it should be done positively without the slashing and trashing that right now you have advocated.
07:12In the real world, we know that support personnel are absolutely necessary.
07:20Answering the phones, cleaning the surgical equipment, preparing the operating rooms, scheduling the appointments, or fixing the IT systems.
07:28Those burdens will fall to others, or they will simply fall through the cracks if you slash and trash the VA.
07:36In Connecticut, the VA is operating without a locksmith, because that position is not exempt from your hiring freeze, and the VA has ignored local requests for that exemption.
07:49There's no way for a VA facility to operate reliably and safely without good locks on the doors.
08:02Now, that position may seem like a minor or trivial one, but every member of the VA team is necessary to make the team effective and efficient.
08:16Now, we've already begun seeing the results and local impacts of staffing shortages.
08:25We've heard directly from veterans.
08:27My office has, colleagues have, service lines at numerous VA hospitals and clinics have been reduced.
08:37Mammogram appointments have been postponed.
08:40Prosthetic employees have been fired and services reduced.
08:43The availability of VA operating rooms, as well as inpatient recovery, emergency room, and long-term care beds have been reduced.
08:53Probationary staff in logistics and procurement have been fired, meaning critical medication and equipment deliveries have stalled.
09:02In some VA hospitals, senior and clinical staff are now helping stock supplies.
09:09Medical center employees, medical center employees, who manage research grant applications, have been fired, leaving hospitals unable to apply for new research funding.
09:20Countless employees are being driven away.
09:24You have 40,000 openings right now that you're recruiting to fill at the same time as you're firing 80,000.
09:32It makes no sense.
09:35How do you expect to recruit qualified, skilled, dedicated, new workers, whether they're physicians or counselors, nurses, when you are firing?
09:50Probationary employees who are the future of the VA workforce or who have been promoted because they are performing with such excellence.
09:58So, I think that you owe this committee some explanation.
10:11You have refused to do it so far in response to the 19 letters that I have written along with colleagues and the 21 other inquiries.
10:21There needs to be accountability.
10:24We need to avoid the potential disaster that is looming.
10:29And make no mistake, it is a disaster that is on the horizon, approaching us as surely as a thunderstorm in the nation's capital.
10:42And we need to avoid it.
10:44It will be a self-inflicted wound that disastrously affects all of our VA beneficiaries, whether they use health care or the PAC Act.
11:00And that is one reason why I have advanced the putting veterans first bill that would mandate rehiring all those fired VA employees and all the veterans who've been fired from the federal workforce in other agencies.
11:15Give them the right to individual personal determinations, which should be their right under current law.
11:25We need to make the VA a place that works better for veterans and their families.
11:31They deserve nothing less.
11:33Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
11:36Senator Blumenthal, thank you.
11:38Mr. Secretary.