Senator Murray Statement on Meeting with VA Secretary Nominee Doug Collins

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, released the following statement after meeting with Douglas A. Collins, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA):

"VA Secretary is an incredibly consequential role that directly affects the health care, personal lives, and financial stability of the more than nine million veterans who receive care through VA. I'm glad Mr. Collins and I were able to have a productive conversation today about the challenges facing the agency and the importance of fulfilling our sacred obligation to care for our men and women in uniform when they return home-no matter what.

"I made clear to Mr. Collins I am ready to work with him to prioritize fixing the Electronic Health Records System before expanding it, and I pressed Mr. Collins on whether he will stand up to plans laid out in Project 2025 to limit healthcare eligibility and cut disability payments that veterans have earned through their service, and whether he will make sure that veterans who were exposed to toxins while serving our country can continue to get the health care and benefits they deserve. We also spoke about working together to expand child care access at VA facilities.

"I have serious disagreements with Mr. Collins when it comes to reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights-our next VA Secretary should be someone who will respect the civil rights and basic dignity of the millions of women and LGBTQ+ veterans they will be accountable for serving.

"Bottom line, we need a leader at VA who will prioritize the needs of our veterans-all veterans-over loyalty to Donald Trump or a billionaire-directed, right-wing agenda of slapdash spending cuts across programs veterans rely on.

"As the daughter of a WWII veteran, ensuring our men and women have the support they need after they return home is deeply personal to me-and it matters a great deal for folks in Washington state. I look forward to working constructively with our next VA Secretary to ensure that every person who has served our country in uniform can count on their government to have their back."

Senator Murray was the first woman to join the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee and the first woman to chair the Committee-as the daughter of a World War II veteran, supporting veterans and their families has always been an important priority for her. Senator Murray has fought throughout her career for increased benefits for veterans, housing assistance, veterans' clinics throughout Washington state, and more accountability from the VA.

Advocating for women veterans in particular has been a longtime focus for Senator Murray, and as Chair of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee in 2010, Senator Murray passed her landmark Women Veterans Health Improvement Act into law. Murray has worked to permanently authorize the VA child care pilot program to increase access to free, quality child care for veterans during their appointments, make much-needed improvements to the women veterans call center, and fix a loophole that left veterans footing the bill for medically-necessary emergency newborn transportation that VA should be covering. Murray introduced and helped pass the Deborah Sampson Act, legislation to address gender disparities at VA that established a dedicated Office of Women's Health at VA and required every VA health facility to have a dedicated women's health primary care provider, among other things. Murray also helped to pass the MAMMO Act to expand access to high-quality breast cancer screening and treatment services for veterans. Senator Murray leads the Veteran Families Health Services Act, comprehensive legislation that would expand fertility treatments-including IVF-and family-building services for servicemembers and veterans who are unable to conceive without assistance, and she has sought unanimous consent to pass the legislation on multiple occasions. Last March, Murray applauded VA's move to expand IVF services to eligible unmarried veterans and eligible veterans in same-sex marriages, and allowing veterans to use donated gametes in IVF services.

Senator Murray has been conducting oversight on the flawed EHR rollout in Washington state since the Trump administration first negotiated the contract with Cerner (later acquired by Oracle), and at every point in the process since then. Murray has consistently pushed VA on its failed implementation of EHR-conducting oversight, holding the administration accountable, and calling on VA to halt deployment of EHR until they get it right in Washington state. In March 2023, Murray introduced comprehensive legislation that would require VA to implement a series of EHR reforms to better serve veterans, medical personnel, and taxpayers. In the Fiscal Year 2024 funding bills Senator Murray negotiated and passed as Chair of the Appropriations Committee, Murray secured stronger language to hold VA and Cerner accountable for the rollout of the EHR system, and in May 2024, she sent a letter urging VA to consider feedback on the system from providers and veterans in Spokane and Walla Walla and reiterating that VA must not move forward on the rollout of EHR until the myriad issues that have plagued the system in the locations where it has been launched are fixed.

###