VA Secretary Touts Shutdown Resilience, Warns of Benefits Strain

Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins said the ongoing government shutdown has had limited impact on veterans’ health care services, but it is straining other parts of the agency’s operations and workforce.

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA), which represents roughly 90% of VA’s operations, remains open and fully functional. The department’s hospitals and clinics are funded through advanced appropriations, allowing them to continue operating even during lapses in federal funding.

“Our health care system is working,” Collins told reporters in Washington D.C. Wednesday. “If you need health care at the VA … they’re doing it better, faster and with higher quality than we’ve seen in years.”

Collins highlighted recent reforms within VHA, including a shift toward a “bottom-up” approach to management that gives more decision-making authority to field staff and facilities. Each VA hospital now tracks 18 key performance indicators to improve accountability and measure quality.

Collins acknowledged the disruptions in other VA divisions. Most of the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) and National Cemetery Administration (NCA) workforce is currently furloughed, though disability payments and burials continue. Collins noted the shutdown has paused services for transitioning servicemembers such as vocational rehabilitation and education programs to secure civilian employment and training.

“I have veterans who are getting out of active duty who are trying to get their employment, trying to get skills … and they can’t do this because Congress has decided that they want to shut the government down,” Collins said, calling on lawmakers to “quit holding my veterans hostage.”

This year the agency’s workforce reductions has included 30,000 early retirements from non-hospital staff who accepted the administration’s deferred resignation offer. Still, Collins said staffing levels are stable, and the department is making progress on the disability claims backlog.

Since February, the number of claims pending more than 120 days has dropped by half, from 260,000 to 128,000, while total pending claims declined from one million to 600,000. This is due to various process improvements, Collins said. “The problem was never funding … it was a matter of leadership,” he said.

He also pointed to a new data-sharing partnership with the War Department that could soon allow VA to process disability claims in under 60 days.

“This is my hope, and I think we can do this within the next year, we get those [DOW] records quicker, we could actually have disability claims processed in under 60 days on all claims, not just the ones that we’re fast tracking,” he said.

Collins said the shutdown remains untenable and urged Congress to reopen government. “I just call on right now Congress to get this done,” he said.