At today's Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) questioned VA Secretary Doug Collins.
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00:00Sir Sanders. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:06Secretary Collins, do workers in the United States have a right to be in unions?
00:15Secretary Collins, do workers in the United States have a right to be members of unions?
00:21Okay. Yes or no? Yes. Okay. I didn't know it was a question. Okay.
00:28President Trump issued an executive order banning collective bargaining in the VA, eliminating union rights to 79% of workers there.
00:38Because of security reasons, do you think that workers in the VA are a threat to national security if they're a member of a union?
00:46I don't think that was the purpose of the EO, Senator.
00:48That's exactly what he said. Then why did you eliminate collective bargaining rights at the VA?
00:53I think the interesting issue here is that's not what the EO was about.
00:56The EO was about is our national security interest of our fourth mission.
00:59And if you look at the entire EO, it's about making sure that the fourth mission is not...
01:03Is a nurse at the VA a national security threat by being a member of a union?
01:08Okay. Sir, I can't answer the question. We're on different pages.
01:12It's not the fact that the VA is a national security threat.
01:15It's a national security threat that if we can't perform our fourth mission, we're just looking at it.
01:19Well, bottom line is unions, 79% of workers at the VA are union members.
01:28They no longer are able to engage in collective bargaining.
01:31To me, that is an outrage. I think the courts will overturn that.
01:34Next question.
01:35Well, at this point, that's not true.
01:36At this point, that's not true.
01:38All right. Let me ask you this.
01:42Do you believe that every veteran in this country, as I believe, and I think many members of this committee believe, are entitled to VA health care?
01:51As a veteran, yes.
01:52Yeah. Okay.
01:52What are we doing right now, what are you doing, to improve outreach, to bring more veterans into VA?
02:00Well, I think, you know, let's go back to the question you just said.
02:03Does everybody have a right to be in a union?
02:05The answer is yes.
02:05Does everybody have a right on the benefit that they've earned to come to the VA?
02:08But I can't force them in.
02:10No, no.
02:10Of course you can't.
02:11But of course you can't force them.
02:14I'm missing maybe the point there.
02:15I apologize.
02:16The point is, there are a lot of veterans out there.
02:19I know this.
02:19I used to be chair of this committee, who do not know what their benefits are.
02:24And it's our obligation to say to veterans all over this country, you put your life on the line to defend America.
02:29Congress has passed A, B, and C.
02:31We welcome you into the VA if you choose to come in.
02:34Yeah.
02:34Senator, I think this is a great place for us to have an honest conversation because I'm concerned about this as well.
02:39And part of this goes back to how we're actually transitioning out of DOD into VA.
02:44That's one of the factors.
02:44And I think that's one of the big things.
02:46And there's an honest conversation here.
02:47Is it properly placed right now?
02:50Good.
02:51Transition.
02:51So I'm wanting to do that.
02:52And we're doing outreach all the time with our vet centers and everybody else to let people know.
02:56Okay.
02:56I think we could do a better job.
02:57I agree.
02:58I agree completely.
02:59Okay.
03:01Question.
03:03You know, we talk about VA health care, which is what we're here to talk about.
03:06But we don't put it into a context.
03:08We are living in a nation which has a broken, dysfunctional, wildly expensive health care system.
03:17In your judgment, just out of curiosity, how does VA health care compare to health care out in the regular world for civilians?
03:27I think in certain areas, just like we're out in the regular world, you have some hospitals that are performing exceptionally and you have some that are not.
03:33I think that's the problem that we have in our health care systems in general.
03:36I think this is something I said earlier.
03:38We can't separate out VA from the health care system in a whole.
03:43That's true.
03:43Sometimes we do that.
03:45All right.
03:46Let me ask you this.
03:47My understanding is that we have, roughly speaking, a shortage of 2,500 doctors, 6,600 nurses.
03:59All right.
04:00What are you guys doing to bring in more doctors, nurses, social workers into VA where they're desperately needed?
04:08Well, one, I want to move doctors that are not working with patients and move them into patient care.
04:11That would be a good start, nurses as well.
04:13Also, I'd like to have help from the Congress as well.
04:17We need to actually look at our pay structures and our caps on our doctors and what we can pay them.
04:22It's very difficult to compete when you're offering hundreds, at some points, hundreds of thousands of dollars less for someone to come work at the VA.
04:29All right.
04:30Do you acknowledge, I agree with you, do you acknowledge, though, that right now there is a shortage of doctors, nurses, social workers in the VA?
04:38I acknowledge there's a shortage for everybody in the health care industry on those same issues.
04:42But in the VA?
04:43I'm not criticizing.
04:44No, no.
04:45I mean, we're the same as everybody else.
04:46That's why I said we are the same as every other health care system.
04:49We're struggling to recruit doctors, nurses, and others just as anybody else.
04:54And that's something we're constantly in outreach about.
04:56Sometimes it's helpful, sometimes it's not.
04:59The Department of Defense has a medical school.
05:04You're aware of that, Uniformed Services Medical School, which does a very good job.
05:11Do you think that one of the problems we have overall is that we're not graduating enough doctors and nurses in America?
05:20Yes.
05:20All right.
05:21Do you think we can be expanding schools like the Uniformed Services Medical School to bring more people into DOD and VA health care?
05:33It's an interesting concept.
05:34I think we've got to go back to a deeper issue.
05:36It's why are more of our young people not going to school to go to be a doctor or a nurse or other things?
05:41I think that's a bigger issue.
05:42Fair enough.
05:43But that has to do with that I'm a working class kid.
05:46I'm going to graduate medical school, $500,000 in debt, correct?
05:51Is the idea of entertaining programs saying you want to go to medical school, we're going to pay for your entire tuition, et cetera, et cetera, to encourage you to get the medical school grade?
06:02I think anything that we can look at to encourage that is it's possible you already have that when you can go into the medical and they'll pay for your, in DOD, they'll pay for your medical school.
06:09But it sounds like we may want to expand that.
06:11It's something that we can, I think it's something as an overall health care system, Senator, you and I probably agree on this probably more than anyone else,
06:18that we've got to make sure that our pool of workers is adequate for all of our systems, not just the VA.
06:25And the health care system in our country is an issue that we have right now, and I think it's a bigger discussion.
06:30I appreciate you bringing it up, and it's something we look at.
06:33Okay.