Senate Confirms Pentagon Official to Head Veterans Affairs Department

The Senate on Monday confirmed President Trump's second Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) secretary, Robert Wilkie, to assume the role of VA chief, reports National Public Radio . Wilkie is viewed as a safe pick, but Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voiced his opposition to the appointment in a stand against what he says are the Trump administration's moves to turn VA healthcare over to the private sector. The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee gave Wilkie a fairly frictionless hearing, although several Democratic senators solicited from him a vow to oppose efforts to privatize VA healthcare. The VA has been unsettled in the wake of Trump's firing of his first VA secretary, David Shulkin, while VA Acting Secretary Peter O'Rourke testified at a recent House hearing that many VA officials were exiting because they were not in line with the Trump administration's "historic, transformative changes" that "are going to change the status quo." Wilkie will be overseeing a department facing ambitious changes that include a major overhaul in private care coverage, a realignment of the VA's infrastructure, and an expansion of a caregiver program for disabled vets, as part of the recently passed VA Mission act. Furthermore, the VA is adopting a new electronic medical record while confronted with a staffing shortage and unprecedented demand from aging Vietnam vets and recent veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.