The Four Misleading Arguments Made by Doug Collins
Long before becoming Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Doug Collins’s intention to steer veterans and their health care dollars away from VA medical facilities and into private hands was well-established. During his tenure in the U.S House of Representatives, Collins was a staunch ally of the Koch-backed Concerned Veterans for America (CVA), a group whose ideological north star is privatizing VA services. He embraced three key bills the organization championed that laid the groundwork for outsourcing large numbers of VA patients and weakening protections for VA employees.
During his January confirmation hearing, Collins tried his best to obscure his past and shroud his objectives, lulling skeptical committee members with reassuring-sounding platitudes, such as “there’ll always be a VA for the veteran.” He has continued to spread these unconvincing assertions as VA Secretary in interviews, press releases, Twitter videos, and congressional hearings, while, at the same time, swiftly advancing proposals to deeply cut VA resources and personnel and redirect the so-called “savings” toward expanded outsourcing to private-sector care.
As lawmakers and the press increasingly call out his hypocrisy, Collings is becoming more combative, marked by disparaging comments directed at reporters, VA employees, and officials responsible for overseeing his agenda. During one recent exchange with Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Collins lashed out, “You’re not being truthful. I’m not going to let you get away with that.” His stance calls to mind Shakespeare’s famous observation in Hamlet that, “The lady doth protest too much.” It is often the case, after all, that those who most vehemently attack others’ credibility are themselves concealing the truth.
Collins’ privatization campaign rests on four misleading narratives. In a new report, VHPI Senior Policy Analyst Russell Lemle and VHPI Reporting Fellow Jasper Craven dig into these narratives, in part by revealing new data that shows a grim picture of VA clinical staffing.
Read their report here.
