Tuberville Discusses Goals for 2027 VA Budget with VA Secretary Collins

WASHINGTON – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) participated in a Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs (SVAC) hearing to review the Budget for Fiscal Year 2027, and 2028 advance appropriations requests with Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) Doug Collins, and VA Assistant Secretary for Management and Chief Financial Officer Richard Topping. During the hearing, Sen. Tuberville presented concerns he hears from local Alabama veterans, including the need to streamline the Community Care process. Read Sen. Tuberville’s remarks below or watch on YouTube or Rumble . TUBERVILLE: “Mr. Secretary thank you for being here. Congratulations on retirement at an early age. I heard you say a younger veteran. That’s —” COLLINS: “And you still see me sitting here.” TUBERVILLE: “That’s right. Going around to my VAs, just a few thoughts and what I’m hearing, [is the need for] better, competitive physician pay. You know, all of them are looking for more money, obviously, for, you know, to get better physicians. [They] need more power at the local level — a little bit too much bureaucracy. It’s gotten better they say, but it was still a little too much bureaucracy in there. […] The local levels are afraid to make any decisions. They’re afraid they’ll step on somebody’s toes. So, just give you some ideas of what I’m hearing. “ COLLINS: “Yeah. I would love to answer that” TUBERVILLE: “Go ahead. Go ahead.” COLLINS: “We have the best, let me just state this quickly. I’m going to show something that somebody probably a Secretary has never sat here and said before this Committee. We have some of the best employees that’s ever been. But over the past 30-40 years, me included when I was across the dais as well, in this Committee as well. The main thing we focus on this is what we do wrong.” It’s what we get bad. It’s ‘I’m standing up for my veterans because this is what’s going wrong.’ We rarely talk about the successes. And even today’s success has been criticized by saying, well, they’re not as accurate enough, which is not true either. I wanna stand up for my VA employees and tell them that I believe they’re the greatest in the world that over the last year, they have lowered wait times. They have taken on more responsibility. They’ve opened two million more appointment times that did not exist previously. They’ve actually opened 35 new facilities. We’ve actually [got] EHRM, which is going. And they are doing this even when everybody else is wanting to say everything’s bad at the VA. And I believe what happened to many of our employees over time, you talk about morale, you talk about that, is every time they would try something new, they would either get a letter saying how bad something else or one veteran didn’t get seen in a timely manner. Also, by the way, a reminder to everybody in this room. We’re the only healthcare system in the world that measures wait times. The only one. Nobody else does this. And, you know, the reason we did, is because the VA screwed up and didn’t put people on a colonoscopy list. And we as a Congress decided we had to figure out a way to make sure that they were getting there. So, we came up with wait times. Nobody else does this. So, I want VA employees, and I’ve told everyone down to our center directors this is what RISE is gonna do. Our new reorganization is gonna empower those VAMC directors to be the senior leaders they’re supposed to be. And that is take control of their budget, take control of their FTEs and make it right. I’m excited about where we’re heading. I appreciate you acknowledging that going forward. You did mention one, and I think Senator King hopefully is gonna talk about this. It’s our ‘-ologist’ problem. It’s a pay problem. I’m capped at the President’s pay. An ‘-ologist,’ by the way, and you can fill in your blank cardiothoracic, anesthesia, whatever you want to put to ‘-ologist,’ I can’t attract the best in that because they can go other places and make $300,000-400,000 more than what I can offer.” TUBERVILE: “Okay. Good explanation. Let’s talk about electronic health records. I’m going to complain again. Another complaint here. But I but I said this last time, you know, my VAs are telling me they’re having a tough time getting records from Community Care. They can’t get it back in the system. Your thoughts.” COLLINS: “They’re exactly right. I mean, again, […] I’m old enough in here, everybody else is, I’m just getting old. I remember when you used to use internet and you’d go and you heard the sound because you had to get the DSL number and you had to say, ‘Hey, do I get internet?’ That’s sort of the way we’re working with other professionals in this healthcare sphere that they’re working at cyber speed. We’re working at dial up. And so, the EHRM is so important. And I’m looking forward to supporting the President’s budget fully and in the years to come. Because until we are able to actually have an EHRM system that is part of the 21 st century, we can’t talk to community providers. It’s going to be imperative for the Community Care network that we do this. But here’s you the worst one. Do you know our and I’m just being honest here. You know our facilities can’t talk to each other? Our current record system does not allow us to talk to each other, and we spend $700 million a year just to keep it alive. I agree completely with that criticism. And in as soon as I get the funds and the money in this construction, we move this project forward, we’re gonna have them all done.” TUBERVILLE: “Alright. And the last part of my time, I wanna give you a little bit of time to talk about, you know, the money spent in the last Fiscal Year. The VA, your thoughts about all the money that that we’ve given you in the direction it’s gone?” COLLINS: “I think that what’s been given, and I appreciate the congress appropriating a budget for the last two years that has come from President Trump given an increase in our budget both years. And he did it and went so in a way in which we’re actually targeting what we need — construction. Our average age facility is over 70 years old. We’ve increased our construction, but we’re looking ahead not only to major construction, and how we build hospitals. We’re actually then able to take that and make it better because we’re gonna remove some of the bureaucracy out of what we do [and] how we build stuff. We’ve actually taken that money and expanded our EHRM system. We’re actually now gonna get 13 in this year. Upwards of 23 to 24 next year. The money also has been spent, and I want Richard to comment on this because we, it can’t be said enough how much we spend in Community Care in communities and support communities, but also how much we spend in direct care as well.” TOPPING: “Senator, so one of the things we’re excited about in the President’s budget is the $10.4 billion investment in construction. That includes a continuation of the five billion dollars in investment we’ve made in maintenance in our facilities this year. As you know, average physical age, age of physical plant, in VA is 60 years. That five billion dollars we’re spending this year is investing in that infrastructure. The President’s budget includes five billion dollars of investment next year as well, as well as the addition of new facilities in Indianapolis, San Antonio, Manchester, as well as our minor construction projects — getting up to date on where we’re at. So, we thank you for the support. We’ve been able to do that. We thank you for the support on electronic health records as well. That allows us portability, this interplay issue that we’ve got going as well too. So, thank you.” Senator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans’ Affairs, HELP and Aging Committees. ###