Doug Collins to Newsmax: Real Change Will Make VA Critics 'Scream'

The Department of Veterans Affairs has been the "unfortunate whipping post" for members of Congress, unions, the media, and more; but when real change comes, the critics are "going to scream a little bit," VA Secretary Doug Collins told Newsmax Saturday while responding to criticism about the agency under President Donald Trump.

"I just have this sort of maybe simple mindset that, you know, if you're actually spending billions of dollars and employing hundreds of thousands of people and your goal is to service veterans in their healthcare and their benefits, then maybe that should be the goal," Collins said on Newsmax's "America Right Now."

He acknowledged that his philosophy "may sound strange in Washington, D.C.," and around the country, but the VA must help the nation's veterans, and that means change.

"But when you've got a vested interest to keep things the same and someone comes along and makes real changes, they're going to scream a little bit. And that's what we're seeing," said Collins.

He added that the changes to streamline the VA mean getting back to priorities that "the previous administration for the last four years ignored, and that's the Mission Act."

This includes looking at how to combine some of the VA's resources, particularly in catastrophic care, paralysis, and disability issues with prosthetics, but also in the issues of basic care, said Collins.

This includes giving veterans the choice to get some of the care in their communities rather than being required to travel long distances for care.

"We're actually giving the veterans more choices in their healthcare," said Collins. "We're going to be putting more resources toward the healthcare they currently have, actually getting doctors out from behind a desk and pushing paper and actually going to a patient and actually being a clinician again. I think that's sort of where the veterans in this country need to be put first."

He added that under the Biden administration, the priorities were not to help veterans themselves.

"We were too focused around here on DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), in which we were dividing our veterans and dividing our workforce," said Collins. "We're putting that $14 million back into patient care.

"We're no longer going to have to do services that change someone's sex. We're not going to do that. That gender dysphoria stuff is over. If you're receiving hormone treatments at the VA, you'll continue to get that. But we're going back to putting that money toward disabled veterans and prosthetics."

The VA, which provides healthcare and benefits for about nine million veterans, estimates that fewer than 0.1% identify as trans.

Veterans' services need things that unify care, not divide it, "and what we found was a lot of division instead of helping the veterans," he added.

He also said the administration is working to improve statistics on veterans' suicides and homelessness.

"What we're doing right now doesn't really seem to be working," said Collins. "We've dropped homelessness a little bit. We still have 40,000 veterans at any one moment in this country who do not have adequate housing or no housing at all.

"We have the suicide rate of 17 veterans to 20 veterans, depending on what number you want to have, even higher, possibly, [dying] of death by suicide every day."

And looking at matters from Trump's perspective, "we want to spend as much money as possible to get it down to zero," he said. "We don't want a veteran to ever be out there to not have shelter or a veteran who is right now, to think that they that taking their life is or death by suicide is an option."

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