The Veterans Affairs Department has a confirmed secretary after the Senate easily voted to approve former Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., into the role, though Democrats made immediate demands on the agency’s new chief.
Collins, who was confirmed in a 77-23 vote on Tuesday, has vowed to support a public health care network for veterans and VA’s highly performing employees. He has also said he would look for ways to grow the department’s offerings of private sector care and move to more quickly and easily fire employees not meeting expectations.
VA has moved to swiftly implement many of President Trump’s controversial workforce changes, ending telework for non-union employees, placing dozens of employees who worked on diversity issues on administrative leave and freezing hiring for a relatively small portion of the workforce. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, voted for Collins but immediately following his confirmation sent a list of demands.
“Over the past two weeks, we have seen an unprecedented number of dangerous and unlawful actions from the White House that will decrease access to care for veterans across the country, delay delivery of recently-expanded benefits for toxic-exposed veterans and their families, and disrupt a wide array of critical services and opportunities they rely upon,” Blumenthal said in a letter to Collins.
He requested the Trump administration’s actions be quickly reversed, including to unwind the partial onboarding freeze currently in place. VA exempted 300,000 health care roles from the hiring pause, but that still leaves more than a quarter of positions—including support and administrative health care roles—frozen.
In his confirmation hearing, Collins called the freeze a “prudent step” and said he would examine the workforce to see if any vacancy represents an actual need for the department.
Blumenthal also requested that Collins immediately clarify VA is not subject to any funding freezes, reinstate Mike Missal as inspector general after Trump fired him and block Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency employees from accessing VA systems and records. He also said VA should rescind all the “delayed resignation” offers VA employees received and prevent any department staff from being placed into Trump’s new category of federal employee that allows for politicized firings.
At least one VA region emailed staff on Friday to tell them guidance on the deferred resignation program would be forthcoming “in order to ensure continued healthcare operations.” Even employees who have already indicated they want to accept the offer and have received confirmation from the Office of Personnel Management should continue to work until they hear otherwise from a supervisor, Laura Ruzick, the regional director said.
“It is critical that no operational changes stemming from presidential directives or orders are implemented outside of official VHA Operations guidance,” Ruzick said. “Unless explicitly directed otherwise, we will maintain our current operational posture.”
Blumenthal suggested that without immediate action on those issues, veterans would suffer from “severed access to critical grant programs, a lack of oversight, and a politicized, divided, and depleted VA workforce.”
Collins previously told lawmakers he would “be the biggest cheerleader” for every VA employee doing their jobs properly but would do “whatever it takes” to get rid of anyone else.
Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., who chairs the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said Collins would cut through “bureaucratic red tape” that obstructs veterans from receiving care and services.
“We must restore accountability for bad VA employees, streamline the delivery of benefits, and make certain that the intent of the VA community care program is understood—and carried out properly—across the country,” Bost said. “I have no doubt that he is the right man for the job.”
The former congressman served as a chaplain in the Navy and later joined the Air Force Reserve, though he did not serve on the House Veterans Affairs Committee during his time on Capitol Hill.
The soon-to-be-sworn-in secretary said the nation’s largest health care network would always exist for veterans. He pledged to continue to utilize and grow private sector options for veterans, however, which has subsumed a growing portion of VA’s budget since the passage of the 2018 Mission Act in Trump’s first term.
“I believe you can have both, you can have a strong VA as it currently exists and you can have the community care aspect,” Collins said, referring to the program by which VA pays for veterans to receive private care.
