{"id":77382,"date":"2025-04-14T20:43:51","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T20:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2025\/04\/14\/va-leaders-launch-search-for-top-benefits-health-care-leaders\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T16:51:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:51:30","slug":"va-leaders-launch-search-for-top-benefits-health-care-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/veterans\/2025\/04\/14\/va-leaders-launch-search-for-top-benefits-health-care-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"VA leaders launch search for top benefits, health care leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.federaltimes.com\/veterans\/2025\/03\/17\/va-leaders-roll-back-policy-ensuring-medical-care-for-transgender-vets\/\" target=\"_blank\">Veterans Affairs leaders<\/a> on Monday formally launched their search for candidates to oversee department health care issues and benefits delivery, a process which is expected to take several months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unlike other leadership positions at VA, which can be nominated by the president based solely on the president\u2019s goals for the posts, candidates for the undersecretary for health and undersecretary for benefits posts must come from recommendations of commissions featuring community advocates, industry experts and previous appointees from the department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/veterans\/2025\/03\/06\/va-secretary-insists-massive-staff-cuts-needed-to-refocus-department\/\" target=\"_blank\">VA Secretary Doug Collins<\/a> said in a statement Monday that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/veterans\/2025\/03\/27\/senate-confirms-former-va-benefits-chief-as-new-deputy-secretary\/\" target=\"_blank\">VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence <\/a>will chair both commissions and help find leaders who will continue \u201cimplementing a number of reforms to improve VA services for veterans, families, caregivers and survivors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/veterans\/2025\/03\/06\/va-secretary-insists-massive-staff-cuts-needed-to-refocus-department\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">VA secretary insists massive staff cuts needed to refocus department<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">Secretary Doug Collins confirmed leaders are looking at trimming 80,000 workers to slim down the growing VA bureaucracy.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federaltimes.com\/veterans\/2022\/07\/21\/after-a-5-year-wait-va-gets-a-new-top-medical-leader\/?contentQuery=%7B%22includeSections%22%3A%22%2Fhome%22%2C%22excludeSections%22%3A%22%22%2C%22feedSize%22%3A10%2C%22feedOffset%22%3A875%7D&#038;contentFeatureId=f0fmoahPVC2AbfL-2-1-8\" target=\"_blank\">undersecretary for health <\/a>post, held in the Biden administration by Dr. Shereef Elnahal, manages the operation of VA\u2019s 1,300-plus medical care facilities. The Senate-confirmed official also handles guidelines for training and education of VA\u2019s health care professionals and develops contingency health care plans in the event of a national emergency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Currently,<a href=\"https:\/\/department.va.gov\/staff-biographies\/steven-l-lieberman\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Deputy Undersecretary for Health Steven Lieberman<\/a> is serving as the department\u2019s acting undersecretary for health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/veterans\/2023\/02\/17\/va-benefits-nominee-promises-more-free-help-for-veterans-filing-claims\/\" target=\"_blank\">undersecretary for benefits<\/a> post, held in the last administration by Joshua Jacobs, oversees delivery of benefits for roughly 6 million veterans, as well as millions more family members, caregivers and survivors. That includes disability pay, education stipends and the VA home loan program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Currently, <a href=\"https:\/\/department.va.gov\/staff-biographies\/michael-frueh\/#:~:text=Michael%20James%20Frueh%20was%20appointed,Benefits%20on%20January%2020%2C%202025.\" target=\"_blank\">Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Benefits Michael Frueh<\/a> is serving as the acting under secretary for benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Filling the health care post was problematic for President Donald Trump during his first term in office. After elevating Dr. David Shulkin from the role to the VA secretary post, his first administration was unable to settle on a permanent candidate for the medical leadership role, and cycled through a series of temporary leaders for the entire four-year term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a statement announcing the new commissions, VA leaders touted their importance in implementing Trump\u2019s second-term agenda. Among the \u201csuccessful accomplishments and milestones\u201d listed by department leaders were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Phasing out gender dysphoria treatment for transgender veterans as a cost-savings move<\/li><li>Ending telework and remote work policies as an efficiency move<\/li><li>Ending diversity and inclusion programs at the department as a cost-savings move<\/li><li>Accelerating deployment of the new electronic health record system, with work set to resume in 2026<\/li><li>Processing more disability claims so far this fiscal year than ever before<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The commission work begins amid Collins\u2019 review of plans to scale back the department\u2019s workforce by more than 17% \u2014 about 80,000 workers \u2014 in coming months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Department leaders have said the cuts are needed to make the bureaucracy more efficient. Critics have said the cuts will severely impact medical care delivery and benefits processing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The commission\u2019s candidate selection process is expected to take several months, and Senate confirmation could take months more if a nominee is chosen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, Trump can also reject all of the potential candidates and order the commissions to restart their work if he is unhappy with the results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence will oversee a search the department&#8217;s new undersecretary of health and undersecretary of benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":109172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":21,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,12,16,26,65,21],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3328],"class_list":["post-77382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-education-transition","category-news","category-newsletters","category-pentagon-congress","category-veterans"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"ZOCYVLKJ65AJ5OULYWEG3U2CYI","arc_canonical_url":"\/veterans\/2025\/04\/14\/va-leaders-launch-search-for-top-benefits-health-care-leaders\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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