Mr. Speaker, this Member rises today to join the distinguished gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) in his Special Order to highlight the health care challenges that rural veterans face when…
Mr. Speaker, this Member rises today to join the distinguished gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) in his Special Order to highlight the health care challenges that rural veterans face when attempting to access care through the Department of Veterans Affairs.
For many years, this Member has been far from satisfied with various actions of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, such as, one, the use of the health care allocation formula instituted by the Clinton administration and continuing to this day, which in effect penalizes veterans in sparsely settled States like Nebraska; number two, the reorganization of the Nebraska-Iowa region into a larger region headquartered in the Twin Cities of Minnesota; three, the end of inpatient hospitalization in the Lincoln and Grand Island, VA hospitals; and, four, the current procedural difficulties for veterans to have prescriptions filled.
In total, these faulty decisions have amounted to discrimination against
veterans in rural areas. First, due to the closure and consolidation of veterans health care facilities in Nebraska, veterans in rural areas frequently travel several hours simply to receive the basic services for which they are entitled and are eligible. As a result of this travel, they must incur transportation costs such as overnight accommodations which other veterans are not expected to incur for the same services. Furthermore, requiring elderly and frequently sick or incapacitated veterans to travel on Interstate 80 or other very busy roads and highways is not only unfair to them, but also places them and other citizens at risk.
The severity of this problem was brought to this Member's attention by a January 2002 Lincoln Journal Star article featuring one Nebraska veteran who served in the Navy during World War II. Three years after he was diagnosed with several diseases, his wife of 49 years could no longer care for her husband. She said that putting her husband in a nursing home was the hardest thing she had ever had to do in her entire life. Medicare and a private insurance supplement cover doctors' expenses, and the couple uses their retirement savings to pay for the $4,000 monthly nursing home cost.
However, additional expenses include $1,000 a month to cover the cost of seven prescription drugs that this veteran must take to stay alive. Although he qualifies for a prescription drug benefit through the VA, in order to obtain this benefit, the drugs must be prescribed by a VA doctor at VA-approved facilities. As a result, this veteran must travel 50 miles every 6 months in order to have prescriptions reauthorized.
Now, because that veteran is 74 years old, confined to a wheelchair, suffers serious blood clots which prohibit him from traveling, this 50- mile trip often proves to be impossible.
With the struggles of this veteran and many others in mind, this Member expresses his strongest support for H.R. 2379, the Rural Veterans Access to Health Care Act for 2003. Indeed, this Member is a proud cosponsor of this measure, which was introduced by my colleague, the distinguished gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne). He is to be commended for crafting this legislation, which addresses a critical problem about which our constituents in Nebraska are increasingly expressing their concerns.
Through H.R. 2379, no less than 5 percent of the total appropriated funds for health care would be dedicated to address veterans health care access problems in highly rural or geographically remote areas. As amended by this bill, highly rural or geographically remote would apply to areas in which the veterans have to drive at least 60 minutes or more to a VA health care facility. Each Veterans Integrated Service Network, that is called VISN, director would receive an equal level of funding from this account and then have the discretion to address rural access issues as best fit each VISN. If a VISN would be unable to use all of these funds from this account, the VISN would not be allowed to retain unused funds. Instead, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs would then have the opportunity to reallocate those funds to other VISNs closely nearby or anywhere that is rural and geographically remote.
All Members of Congress should agree that the VA must provide adequate services and facilities for veterans all across the country regardless of where they live, in sparsely settled areas with resultant low-usage numbers for VA hospitals. There must be at least a basic level of acceptable national infrastructure of facilities, medical personnel and services for meeting the very real medical needs faced by our veterans wherever they live. There must be a threshold funding level for VA medical services in each State and region before any per capital funding level is applied.
Furthermore, I support H.R. 3777, the Healthy Vets Act of 2004. This Member is also a cosponsor of this legislation, introduced by our colleague, the distinguished gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis).
This measure would allow those veterans in rural areas which are geographically inaccessible to the nearest VA medical facility to enter into contracts with community health care providers on a fee basis to receive primary health care in their own communities. This authority would allow rural veterans to receive preventive regular medical attention without being forced to travel what is too often a prohibitive distance to seek such care.
In spite of the fact that each Congress sets a new record on the amount of appropriation for veterans health care, there have been cutbacks in the access veterans in rural areas have to adequate health care, while there have been advances in other geographic areas. The health care needs of our military veterans must be met to the fullest extent possible. Veterans served in our armed services to protect our freedom and our way of life. As they served our Nation at a time of need, the Federal Government must remember them in their time of need. The debt of gratitude the people the U.S. owe to our veterans surely means we should assist the veterans wherever that need exists.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, this Member remains committed, I would say, to ensuring that Nebraska veterans receive the benefits they deserve, benefits they had expected and which the American people said they want to deliver. I urge support of H.R. 2379 and H.R. 3777.
