U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Review of the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget and 2026 Advance Appropriations Requests for the Department of Veterans Affairs

Chairman Tester, Ranking Member Moran, distinguished Members of the Committee: thanks for this opportunity to testify.

Maureen Roepsch is an Air Force and Coast Guard Vet who comes from a long line of military service—her family members served in Vietnam, the Korean War, and World War II. Maureen qualifies for community care, but chooses to get her care at the Manchester VA Medical Center. After a recent routine mammogram, Maureen was diagnosed with breast cancer. She says her VA nurse navigator, Kelly Hunt, was by her side every step of the way, making sure that her surgery and radiation happened right away. Today, thankfully, Maureen’s cancer-free and receiving treatment to safeguard against recurrence. Maureen says, “It’s such a comfort knowing I have this team on my side.” She goes on, “The difference I feel when I get care at VA is significant.  I feel like I’m home. The providers take that extra time to understand my complex health history … I feel like they see me.”

We owe Vets like Maureen, and all Vets, our very best. And we’re fighting like hell to give them exactly that. We are delivering more care and more benefits to more Vets than at any other time in our nation’s history. Since the March 5^th expansion of health care eligibility to all Veterans with toxic exposures, we’ve enrolled more than 12,500 Veterans under that PACT Act authority alone. And over the course of the last year, we’ve enrolled over 400,000 new Vets in VA health care, 30% more than the previous year, and an increase in all 50 states. 6.5 million Vet patients had over 118 million clinical visits, 47 million in the community, 42 million in-person at VA, and 29 million via VA tele-health. That last data point bears repeating. Millions of Vets use VA telehealth.

Now on to benefits. We decided over 1.9 million claims, shattering the previous year’s record by 16%. We’ve all heard justifiable frustrations with C&P exams. But last year, we processed 2.4 million C&P exams—a record by nearly 30%—and took an average of just 31 days to complete them. In total, we delivered $163 billion in earned benefits to over 6 million Veterans and survivors, another record. And the PACT Act has opened the door to millions of toxic exposed Veterans and their survivors, bringing generations of new Vets to VA health care, and expanding benefits for many more. The PACT Act is also delivering additional benefits for Vets—the GI Bill, VR&E, home ownership, survivors’ pension, and so much more—benefits that not only improve Veterans’ lives but also strengthen the American economy.

We still have a lot of work to do. The President’s proposed budget fully funds VA so we can continue doing that important work. That work is also about preventing Veteran suicide, ending Veteran homelessness, supporting health care for women Vets, modernizing our IT systems, processing benefits, and honoring Vets with eternal resting places. 

And no single investment is more critical to the Veterans we serve and VA’s future than the people we hire and retain. Teammates like Tarina Broughton, a housekeeping supervisor at our Cincinnati VA Medical Center. Tarina’s husband is a Vet, and she says she goes to work each day striving to provide the kind of welcoming environment she’d want for him at VA. That’s the kind of deep devotion that characterizes VA’s people. Tarina says she’s grateful for the critical skill incentive she received—the CSI. Her daughter’s prescriptions cost $700 a month, and the CSI has allowed Tarina to focus on her work as a supervisor without the financial stress of wondering whether she’ll be able to afford her daughter’s lifesaving medication.

Now today marks the first day of Nurses Month, where we honor VA’s 122,000 nurses. Let me repeat—122,000 nurses, the largest nursing workforce in the country. That’s up 14,000 nurses since January 2022. That’s one reason why we feel quite comfortable with the staffing numbers outlined in this budget.

The work of caring for the brave men and women who fight our wars—and their families, survivors, and caregivers—is in full swing and continues to grow.

The MISSION Act, COVID, and the PACT Act—all over just the past six years—have changed the American health care landscape and the statutory basis for the work we do at VA. Any one of those on their own would lead to monumental change for VA. But, together, they have changed the way we do business, creating some challenges, but mostly enormous opportunities for Veterans and VA.

Right now, we are at a critical moment for shaping and securing the future of Veteran health care in America. So we will work to reliably offer a VA care option to every Veteran—even Vets who qualify for community care under the MISSION Act.

We want to bring as many Vets as possible into our care, because study after study shows that Vets do better at VA.

We’ve made considerable progress. Whether in-person, via telehealth, in our community living centers, mobile medical units, or elsewhere, Vets can access VA care at almost every turn. What we do this year and over the next several years—building on the generosity of Congress and the innovative hard work of VA’s workforce, the best in the federal government—will determine what Vets can expect from VA and how we deliver that high standard of care well into the future.

This budget is the next step to continue delivering more care—the very best care—and more benefits for generations of Veterans to come. So, we look forward to collaborating even more effectively with you, to build on what’s working while being candid about and fixing what’s not.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.