At today's Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) questioned VA Secretary Doug Collins.
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00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do think it's important to acknowledge that we did sign up, just in the first year of the PAC-DAC alone, a million veterans.
00:09So that increase in personnel is also to deal with the increase in veterans coming to VA for care, long overdue for their acts because of their exposure to toxic substances.
00:18We also lost about 400,000 veterans that year as well, so it does equal out a little bit.
00:22But we had well over a million in the first year to sign up.
00:25Secretary Collins, when you testified before this committee in January, you stated that it would be a mark of failure, your words, mark of failure, if a veteran must contact the Congressional Office for support with accessing their VA care and benefits.
00:39My office alone has received 143 casework requests from veterans since the start of the Trump administration, a consequence of service disruptions worsened by DOJA's cruel dismantlement of the VA workforce and of the critical program serving our nation's heroes.
00:54I'm going to give you some examples.
00:56A Vietnam veteran did not receive his benefits for three months due to greater than usual processing times.
01:01A veteran in urgent need of mental health services was told that the earliest available appointment was six weeks away.
01:08A veteran's widow and cancer survivor had her CHAMP VA covered prescription canceled without notice, forcing her to pay $700 out of pocket.
01:17An Iraq war veteran needed his records to apply for his disability benefits, but was met with a six to 12 month backlog.
01:24Now, backlogs and delays are not new to VA.
01:27They were there when I was at the VA under Secretary Shinseki in the Obama administration.
01:31And so I think, you know, I would agree that this is indeed a mark of failure and I'm requesting your commitment to work together to overcome this backlog.
01:41This will require the immediate reinstatement of all 2,400 VA employees who were indiscriminately terminated when Elon Musk and his doge cronies failed to evaluate civil servants on the basis of merit.
01:52And failed to use a scalpel to root out the bad apples who are failing to effectively execute the mission.
01:58And instead chose the most wasteful, inefficient, and lazy path in simply firing probationary employees en masse.
02:06Which ironically represent some of our nation's most motivated, most idealistic, and most energized federal employees.
02:12Those probationary employees who signed up since the PACT Act was passed, for example.
02:16Those Americans, including thousands upon thousands of veterans, who made the patriotic decision to serve their country and begin their civilian careers.
02:23Secretary Collins, will you commit to reviewing the status of all terminated VA employees and promptly reinstating them,
02:29and to protecting the VA workforce against additional indiscriminate mass firings?
02:34Well, most of the ones that I've already testified are the probationers were brought back to work in that setup, so they're already back at work.
02:39And we're going to keep looking at our setup and how we do it because nothing we've done so far.
02:44We protected over 300,000 plus positions that were not, that did not, they protected those that were directed with disability care and with healthcare benefits.
02:54I just have a question, and I appreciate your concern, because I do still think when they have to call your offices, it's a failure for us.
03:00I say that to all of our hospitals, and I say it to all of our veterans benefits.
03:03I have a curious question here.
03:05You brought up something that's very close to my heart.
03:07Was that veteran who was given six weeks for an appointment, were they given a community care option?
03:11We could get you that information.
03:14I would love to know, because I want to help if we can.
03:16With all my opening cases, I would love to work with you.
03:19Is that also, again, I've acknowledged this from day one.
03:24You and I have talked about this.
03:26The calls to our VA represent something we're not doing right.
03:31And I think that should overlay everything we're talking about here, is why are we, why is this a problem?
03:37Why are we still there?
03:38You know, records that take six, 12 months, that's possibly, I'm assuming that's probably a DOD issue, trying to get the records out of the DOD.
03:44These are all issues that I want to try and fix, but they've not done.
03:48I agree.
03:49Let me just go on to the next thing.
03:51In an official letter response to Senator Tammy Baldwin's oversight letter on the Veterans Crisis Line, dated April 7th of 2025, you wrote, and I quote,
04:00While 24 VCL employees erroneously received probationary termination notices, all notices were rescinded.
04:06All terminated employees were reinstated and have been rehired into the same positions they previously held.
04:12End quote.
04:13Secretary Collins, while I appreciate your candor in finally acknowledging that, in fact, VCL employees were terminated,
04:19and clarifying that this was incompetence and not malicious intent, I hope you recognize that your work in fixing this mistake is not complete.
04:28Personally, I know of at least one veteran who you still have failed to reinstate, and this was a person who did so well that they were promoted to help train other VCL hotline employees,
04:42the type of person who's a supervisor on a shift.
04:45They still have not been reinstated.
04:47Look, the Veterans Crisis Line serves veterans in their darkest hour, and it is our responsibility to make certain that it operates to the highest standards.
04:54Just as every military commander understands that our warfighters' effectiveness, indeed their lethality, depends on a fully resourced, diverse network of enablers,
05:01possessing the capability and capacities to support a given mission's requirements,
05:06you can't just invest and rehire the pilots of the aircraft and not retain the refuelers and the mechanics who fixed that aircraft.
05:15Secretary Collins, do you agree that support staff who train, equip, and handle the basic operational and administrative functions of the Veterans Crisis Line program are mission critical?
05:25That's why we brought them back, Senator.
05:27And I think there's something, though, that we need to also clarify here, and this was clarified not by our senior level,
05:32it was clarified by career employees that no VCL who answers the phone who talked to our veterans was let go.
05:38Right, but the VCL can't operate without the other people as well, like the supervisors on shift or the people who train the VCL.
05:44You are parsing your words, and there are Veterans Crisis Line people who have been fired, who have not been reinstated,
05:51and these are people who actually are training the people who are answering the phones.
05:54These are the people who did so well as a phone answerer that they are the supervisors of the people,
05:58and you can't, like I said, you can't just say, okay, we're going to take care of the pilots,
06:03but not the refuelers and the mechanics who maintain that jet.
06:06And I think we can actually find common ground agreement here that that was why they were brought back,
06:12but also I will not accept the premise when it was given that people were not being answered on the call line when they came in,
06:18which has been talked about many times in the press by others.
06:23That is not true.
06:24I'll acknowledge the fact that we brought back staff to help in those situations, and that's why they're now exempted.
06:29And we did do that, but I will not also let it be put out there that people were not getting their phone calls answered
06:37because those were the ones that were let go.
06:39Those were not the ones that were let go, and I think we at least need to be honest about the situation.
06:43As far as I agree with you, that's why they brought them back.
06:45And if you have a situation with one person, please let me know, let my office find out, and we'll talk about it.
06:49More than one person being affected.
06:51Senator Sullivan.
06:52Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary.
06:54Thank you for your testimony today.
06:57We all want to take care of our veterans.