The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee on Thursday simply superior former Georgia GOP Rep. Doug Collins’s nomination to be the secretary of Veterans Affairs, setting him up for a full Senate vote more likely to be uncontentious.
The panel voted 18-1, with the lone “no” vote coming from Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who stated Collins’s plans for the VA have been “not in line” with what she believed was proper for veterans throughout the nation.
Amongst her considerations was the potential for Collins to overturn a Biden administration rule that permits the VA to offer abortions to veterans for a being pregnant ensuing from rape or incest, or when the lifetime of a pregnant lady is in danger — even in states the place it has been largely outlawed.
Collins, a Navy veteran, Air Drive Reserve chaplain and former pastor, throughout his affirmation listening to didn’t decide to upholding the two-year-old rule after being questioned by Hirono.
“It is something that has been looked at here as what the law actually says, and the original law from 1992 says the VA does not do abortions. Two years ago, that was a decision that was looked at and decided. I will tell you this: We will be looking at that issue when I get in there to confirm that the VA is actually following the law,” Collins stated on the time.
However Collins obtained help from the panel’s rating member, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who stated he was impressed by a lot of his solutions and commitments to veterans throughout his nomination listening to, significantly across the growth of the Pact Act — which expands VA well being care and advantages for veterans uncovered to burn pits and different poisonous substances — in addition to upgrading the VA services and stopping veterans homelessness and suicide.
“I’m hopeful he’ll be the kind of advocate that we really are going to need in this era when the challenges will be greater than ever before fiscally, and the pressure to scale back to cut costs, to pursue harmful policies that may negatively affect our veterans will also be greater,” Blumenthal stated forward of the vote.
One of many federal authorities’s largest companies, with greater than 400,000 staff, the VA has been combating increasing its well being care supply system. Main prices and lengthy wait occasions for take care of former service members has been on the forefront of its struggles, which Collins pledged to sort out ought to he be confirmed.
“At the end of the day, the veteran is getting taken care of. VA care is going to happen … [but] there’s different expressions of how we make it better. We don’t do the same things 40 years ago that we still do today,” Collins stated. “Our newer veterans deserve every access to finding care where they can.”
Collins’s nomination is ready to be simply handed by the total Senate, with a vote anticipated to return subsequent week.
