Sen. Collins Presses VA Secretary on Rural Healthcare for Maine’s Veterans
Q&A on Maine’s Togus VA Medical Center
Click HERE to watch and HERE to download video of their exchange.
Q&A on VA Healthcare Workforce
Click HERE to watch and HERE to download video of their exchange.
Q&A on Rural Transportation Grant
Click HERE to watch and HERE to download video of their exchange.
Washington, D.C. – At a hearing to review the Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 budget request for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, U.S. Senator Susan Collins, Chair of the Appropriations Committee, asked Secretary Doug Collins about funding for infrastructure improvements and staffing at the Togus VA Medical Center in Augusta and stressed the importance of rural transportation grants in Maine.
Q&A on Maine’s Togus VA Medical Center
Senator Collins: Mr. Secretary, welcome. The Togus VA Medical Center in Augusta, Maine is the oldest VA facility in the country. It was established by Abraham Lincoln, and this November will mark the 160th anniversary of the first veteran’s admission to this historic facility. So, we're very proud of this history and of my state's willingness repeatedly to step forward and serve, but we're also very aware of the challenges that come with operating an active medical center out of our nation's oldest VA facility.
Last year, the VA itself identified $594 million in needed infrastructure improvements throughout the Maine system. Yet, the budget request provides only $226 million for projects in Maine. I understand that the VA is in the process of reevaluating its future construction projects. When can we expect to see some of the projects that were previously identified as priorities reinstated?
Sec. Collins: Thank you, Senator. It's always good to be with you.
Just recently, our Undersecretary for Health was up there. We are looking at it overall and making sure that we're putting that construction money, as you know, being that it’s an older facility, that is one of our concerns as we look across our whole spectrum. So, we're reevaluating getting funding where it needs to go, and hopefully that is something we can do as we finish this budget and look ahead to the next one. We're making a reprioritization of that list. And of course, Maine will definitely be a part of that reevaluation, especially as our average age of hospitals is between 60 and 70 years old. That's just unheard of in the health care system. So, I agree with you. We'll continue to look at it.
Senator Collins: And ours, as I said, is so much older.
Q&A on VA Healthcare Workforce
Senator Collins: Last week, and you mentioned the Assistant Secretary for Health being there, which we appreciated, I attended a celebration at the Togus VA Medical Center in Augusta, Maine, and I heard from a Navy veteran named Harry Hall, who described his struggle with substance abuse.
He had had to travel out of state just to get the care that he needed. Now, fortunately, there is a new residential treatment facility at Togus, so veterans like Harry will no longer have to travel far from their families, their towns, their support systems to get the care that they need. So, this important opening of a new residential treatment program facility at Togus is great news.
The problem is, do we have sufficient personnel to staff it? And that remains a real problem in the state of Maine, frankly, for our hospitals all over the state, and rural areas in particular, but for Togus as well. We need to hire the therapists, the doctors, the nurses, the other medical personnel to deliver care for facilities like this one. The Elizabeth Dole Act included a program that would allow the VA to issue waivers to go above the physician pay cap to support VA facilities that are struggling to fill critical positions. What are you doing on workforce issues?
Sec. Collins: Senator, I appreciate that concern. I appreciate one of the things that you said there, and I think it's something for all the committee to understand. And I know we'll talk about this more. We are the largest integrated healthcare system in the country, but we also are part of the healthcare system, okay?
And we have the same struggles that are going on in not only recruitment. We're better in many areas, and, I'm sure there'll be more specifics when we talk about this, but in some areas things are all harder, including in rural areas. The program that came out of the Dole Act, I'm going to be very honest, was very good band aid to, frankly, a weeping hole.
The problem was, it was capped at 300 doctors. That's less than 1.5 percent of my doctors. So, what was happening is, and we're implementing it now. It's going through now. But what was happening is, I don't know if y’all, at least my spouse and I have three kids, and at Christmas every year she made sure that every kid had the same number of presents to open. And I was always fighting and said it doesn't matter. One could be a million dollars, but she wanted the same number of boxes. That's all she cared about.
Here's the problem I’ve had with this 300, which I appreciate greatly, was in there. But if I go to an area and say I hire Senator Bozeman, and I use the incentive to get him in to work, but Senator Fisher, over here was already working in the facility, there are going to be inequitable outcomes in pay. Our concern among our staff and our hospital and clinician staff was we're also running the risk of losing those that we can't bring up over 300 because we had to spread 300 positions over one and a half percent, basically, of our doctor force.
So, it was a great first step. There are some things I would love to talk to this committee about going forward, and the authorizing committee to say, let's take a certain number of ologists, if you would. I'll just use that as a broad term, and say, on these five, we raise the cap for all of them, and we'll bring the numbers, but that way, I can treat all of them the same, instead of having a disparity and an inequity set up with doctors with this 300. So I appreciate you bringing that up. It gives me a chance to explain it.
Senator Collins: Thank you.
Q&A on Rural Transportation Grant
Senator Collins: My time is about to expire, so I will submit the rest of my questions for the record, but I do want to focus you again this year on the highly rural transportation grants. Maine is one of the most rural states in the nation, and yet only one of our 16 counties qualifies for this program, Piscataquis County, and it's because the current rules limit eligibility to counties with fewer than seven people per square mile.
And that's really kind of absurd, if you go to northern, western, eastern Maine, it is very rural, and we have a high number of veterans throughout our state. So, I have a bipartisan bill that would expand the eligibility. It's cleared the Veterans Affairs Committee with the VA feedback incorporated. And I would just end by asking you to take a look at that. I hope you would endorse it.
Sec. Collins: I don't see any problem, I would. I come from Georgia, and as the Ranking Member knows you can come to my hometown and you go a little bit out, it's hard to get around. And so yes, this is a concern, and one of the things, if you don't mind, I apologize for answering this over the time, but one of the things we're having is we're having to view this in a completely different scope, because we are losing, as time and age gets for a lot of our volunteers, who are drivers with DAV, who has been such a great partner forever, we're losing that pool of drivers, and I'm trying to do everything we can to get them in quicker, so I look forward to working with you on that.
Next Article Previous Article