Video: Blumenthal Confronts VA Secretary Collins Over Staffing Cuts at Hearing

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] - At a Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing today, Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) pressed Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins on his elimination of more than 28,000 jobs at VA, including unfilled mission-critical health care positions, following a historic loss of more than 40,000 employees in fiscal year 2025.

"…You have cut about 1,000 positions of physicians. You've cut nurse positions. You've cut all kinds of other support positions, and then you failed to fill the vacancies that have resulted from cutting, or furloughing, or encouraging them to leave. So the workforce has diminished and in turn, veterans are encouraged then to seek community care as a result," Blumenthal said in his questioning.

Blumenthal continued, "There was a reduction of 30,000 people. Call it whatever you want, but it was a reduction. And then you eliminated the positions, so it didn't look like there were any vacancies. Or there's still vacancies but it's not the same number."

When Collins implied that hiring additional workers at the Department is unnecessary, Blumenthal responded: "What did you turn those positions into?...You don't think they've lost people they need? Because that's not what I'm hearing from veterans."

Blumenthal also questioned Collins and VA Chief Financial Officer Richard Topping on the Administration's plans to cut more than $20 million from VA's research budget: "Why? Why? You're doing great work and now you're cutting it?...The VA has been the world leader in research. Why are you cutting it?...I am kind of aghast. Because you have skilled, experienced, dedicated scientists, researchers, and medical experts asking for money to, in effect, advance medicine…As you well know, the VA has provided enormously groundbreaking advances in medicine that have benefited many people outside of the veterans community."

The full text of Blumenthal's opening is below and a video link of his questioning is available here.

Sen. Blumenthal: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your leadership on this Committee and our bipartisan approach to the work of our Committee. In fact, as a result of bipartisan work across multiple administrations and building on the historic achievements like the PACT Act, more veterans are receiving more health care and benefits than ever before. That's a good thing.

Ensuring veterans and their families receive the care and benefits they deserve is a moral mandate. Part of the costs of war are the cost of caring for our veterans, and we need to face the additional costs of war that we are incurring right now in the Iran war. It is a war, it's continuing, and service members, about 400 have been injured, as well as the 14 tragically killed there. They will come home, those 400, with continuing effects of the injuries they suffered, and they deserve fairness and justice, as in the Major Richard Star Act. I've been working and championing this bill. The Chairman and I, I think, are working together very cooperatively on it, and I think we are approaching a solution. But I was heartened to hear the Secretary of Defense in his testimony just about a week or so ago, sitting where you are, say that he supports the Major Richard Star Act, and I hope that is the Administration's position, and that we will do it, literally do it, even possibly before the Fourth of July.

And we're here today because we need a VA capable of delivering on the moral mandate. Not only the Major Richard Star Act, fairness to our veterans, so that they are not docked dollar for dollar in their retirement pay for what they receive on disability benefits, but also more broadly, health care, job training, all of what we promise. We do promise them, and a great nation keeps its promises, and most especially, we need to keep our promises to veterans.

There's broad agreement, Secretary Collins, on many of the items in your $488 billion budget request. For example, the proposed $2 billion increase in construction projects is needed to improve the VA's aging infrastructure. I welcome the Department's commitment to advancing the electronic health record modernization. I'm concerned that the Department's continued insistence on pushing more veterans into community care at the expense of VA direct care may jeopardize the quality of both. And more than $8 billion of the $10.9 billion increase for health care services in FY27 is for community care. The difference is even more significant in the Department's FY28 advance requests, with VA asking for a $17 billion increase in community care, and near stagnant levels for direct care.

Veterans depend on our VA facilities for the gold standard healthcare they need and deserve. And the potential short changing of those facilities, and the staff, the skilled and dedicated men and women who serve as nurses, doctors, schedulers, psychiatrists, custodians, the entire team threatens the quality of care. Veterans typically prefer to receive health care at VA facilities, and yet the funding request for direct care fails to keep pace with inflation. As we all know, a failure to properly fund and staff VA healthcare facilities will force veterans into community care, into that system, rather than VA facilities, and that means that they may be ill-equipped to care for the unique needs of veterans. It may be more costly, it may be less desirable.

The budget request also curtails VA's world-class medical research program with a $23 million budget cut, including cuts in "Administration Priority Areas" like suicide prevention, oncology, and brain health. I just want to say VA over its entire history has pioneered and championed certain kinds of healthcare. It's led the nation, in fact the world, on prosthetics, on traumatic brain injury, on yes, oncology, and other kinds of work where it has a very clear mission, including brain health and suicide prevention.

Now, on the benefits side, the Department plans to continue its expansion of automation and AI. This is seemingly happening without regard for concerns raised by claims processors that it creates, and they may create extraneous and incorrect information. In fact, the Office of Inspector General recently found that nearly all of the 8,100 automated decisions for service-connected death claims it audited "contained at least one legal or procedural deficiency." I think that finding of the Office of Inspector General is very telling. Deficiencies and errors are a common trend in VA's recent push to reduce the claims backlog, and I want to focus for a moment on this very important area.

VA's own data indicates it has increased claims production, it's producing results faster, but it's denying more claims, and the effect is to increase the number of appeals. So, it's a little bit like, we all have children, one of our children saying I did my homework faster and then have a do-over in school when the teacher sees it, because that's what an appeal means. 77% increase in appeals and 11% increase in denials. Why are more veterans being denied in those claims and then having to appeal and clog the VA appeals system?

The Board of Veterans Appeals also reports a 21% increase in an expected number of appeals this fiscal year, that's one fifth more, and it is more costly to have appeals and have to go through that additional process, and it creates more anxiety and pain for the veteran who's applying. This would be the first net increase in pending appeals since FY2022. Despite this reality, the Department's budget calls for significant cuts to the Board's budget and staffing. There's no way to square the two. Increase in numbers of appeals, cuts in the budget for processing those appeals, unjust to our veterans.

I'm also concerned that this budget prioritizes politics over accountability. For instance, it cuts the staff at the Office of Inspector General by 143, below FY2025 levels, while doubling the number of employees in the Secretary's office. So, we have some issues. I hope we can reach common ground.

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