Providing for consideration of the bill (S. 114) to amend title 38, United States Code, to require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to submit an annual report regarding performance awards and bonuses awarded to certain high-level employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 480 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H. Res. 480, currently under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to bring this rule forward on behalf of the Rules Committee. The rule provides for consideration of S. 114, the Department of Veterans Affairs Bonus Transparency Act.

The rule provides for 1 hour of debate, equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. The rule also provides for a motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, we can all agree that our Nation's veterans are heroes. They deserve our support, gratitude, and recognition, and they deserve to have the promises we as a nation have made to them fulfilled. Unfortunately, far too often, we fall short of keeping those promises.

Everyone remembers the scandals that shook the Department of Veterans Affairs a few years ago, highlighting critical problems around the country and the need for greater accountability. In the wake of these crises of mismanagement and wrongdoing, Congress created the Veterans Choice Program in 2014 to provide veterans with better options to seek out timely, appropriate care from providers in their communities rather than wade through the outrageous lines, excessive wait times, and subpar medical care at Veterans Health Administration facilities.

The Choice Program isn't perfect, and my colleagues and I are working to fix that, but it has been a meaningful start and a path to quicker, more convenient care for our Nation's veterans. Without congressional action today, we risk leaving our heroes without Choice. That is not a risk I am willing to take.

VA Secretary Shulkin has estimated that more than 1 million veterans in the VA system use some Choice care, and that number is expected to increase this year. In fact, today, more than 30 percent of the VA appointments are made with private sector providers that have the capacity to relieve some of the burden on our servicemembers and the VA clinics. This year alone, more than 18 million appointments with private doctors have been authorized by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

If we fail to take action, these veterans will lose their ability to receive prompt care from Choice providers. We would be flooding the VA medical facilities with more patients, even as we know that many facilities are still overburdened and, in some cases, underperforming.

Let me be clear: This is not a doomsday prediction. This is not a Henny Penny moment or Hail Mary effort to pass an obscure bill. If Congress refuses to act today, the Choice Program will expire on August 15.

Chairman Roe has worked diligently to ensure that this does not happen. In the Senate, my friend and fellow Georgian, Senator Johnny Isakson, serves as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. He, too, has worked tirelessly to ensure our veterans continue to receive care by safeguarding the viability of the Choice Program.

I have to say, the two chairmen, Chairman Roe and Chairman Isakson, the body is really at a favor having those two men working, and the ranking members working alongside of them, in this process. So we are continuing to look forward to this bill passing, and many more things to come.

When we understand this, Mr. Speaker, I firmly believe that Chairman Roe and Chairman Isakson, along with their respective ranking member counterparts, Mr. Walz and Mr. Tester, are committed to making the existing system work better for veterans.

I also know that the Choice Program needs reform. However, we can't improve a program that doesn't exist. We must first protect what is good in hopes of making it better.

Today's underlying bill provides additional funds to extend the Choice Program for 6 months and provide a critical $2.1 billion infusion of funds while we move forward with thoughtful, sustainable reforms.

I have proposed ideas to make those reforms, including the Expanding Access to Choice Act, which prevents bureaucracy at the VA from derailing a functioning Choice program. I authored that bill as a direct response to concerns that were raised by my constituents in northeast Georgia.

I am sure that many Members here today have similar experiences and have heard similar stories from their neighbors, and I am confident many Members want to fix this program. By supporting the rule and the underlying bill today, we are taking a step towards making that happen.

Secretary Shulkin told the Veterans' Affairs Committee that, without additional funding, veterans would wait longer to receive the healthcare that they deserve. That statement should elicit one thing from this body, Mr. Speaker, and that is action.

Yet there are those who would rather we shuffle down the road of inaction than stand for our veterans today, Mr. Speaker. There are some who claim Choice represents a move towards privatization and who have opposed the Choice Program from the beginning.

Let me set the record straight: We are not talking about privatizing the VA today. We are talking about sustaining a program that currently serves hundreds of thousands--if not millions--of veterans across the country. This bill is not about privatization. It is about breathing 6 months' more life into a program that enables veterans to access care more efficiently and effectively.

This is not the time for partisan maneuvers. Our veterans--their very lives--are on the line, and we owe it to them to vote to move forward so that they receive the care we have promised them.

Mr. Speaker, I am currently in the Air Force Reserve, and I have completed a tour earlier in Iraq. I have witnessed our Armed Forces' display of heroism, and I believe their actions deserve recognition. This bill doesn't repay the debt or gratitude we owe our veterans, but it brings us closer to fulfilling our promises by meeting their needs.

The underlying bill authorizes multiple major medical facility leases, including a lease for a facility in Pike County, Georgia. In addition, S. 114 enhances the recruitment, retention, and training of the VA workforce through a number of measures, including encouraging servicemembers with health-related occupational specialties to seek employment at the Veterans Health Administration and expanding hiring authority in the case of severe shortages of qualified healthcare personnel candidates.

Mr. Speaker, preserving the Choice Program and the access to community care options that it provides is critical. I agree that we can make this program better, but we have to provide a path to do that.

Already, I have heard from veterans in my district who say clinics are raising concerns about the availability of funds for Choice. We must address this issue today, and we must uphold our promises to America's veterans.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Mitchell).

Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would just again reiterate the point of the discussion that this is something we need to take up today. This is not about the peripheral discussions going on concerning Choice, privatization, and other things that have derailed this discussion. I want to see this move forward so we can continue to have viable discussions on Choice, but I would also be remiss, Mr. Speaker, if I did not at least address the discussion. The gentlewoman from New York, who I have the greatest respect for, has her opinion; I have mine as well.

I do not believe what happened last night in the Senate was, in her words, heroic. I believe it was basically a failure. It was a failure of process. What happened last night was not anything except the stopping of a process that could have included Democrats and Republicans in a conference committee, and it was chosen not to move forward. That is the reason we come to this place, is to move forward.

I think when we look at this, the disaster that is ObamaCare, and the reasons that we are now keeping it, and that the healthcare measure has failed, it brings the question to my mind, for the ones who have been helped, and I have never, from this podium or anywhere else, denied that there were many with preexisting conditions and other issues who found help, but, if we remember the promise, the promise was to cover all uninsured. It came nowhere close. The promise was, you can keep your doctor if you liked him, you can keep your plan if you liked it. The promise was that your premiums would go down, and the premiums have gone up.

So for all the supporters, then come to maybe my district or other districts and address those people who have lost their insurance, address those people whose premiums have gone up, address the people like the young lady in Chicago who did get on the ObamaCare exchanges, had a premium that was subsidized, but when she realized that she couldn't afford the deductible, she said: I might as well have not had it.

It is one thing to discuss this in grand terms, it is another to see the result in our system. To talk about the nominal positives against the crushing negatives is not a victory.

So I think we move forward. Today, we have a chance to move forward on Choice, today we have a chance to move forward and look ahead, but I at least say, from this Member's perspective, I don't forget. I understand what I have heard for 7 years.

It has been said many times that the current bill is actually gaining in popularity. Well, I just simply point you to the only polls that have really mattered over the last 7 years, and those are elections, and every time there was an election and this issue was up, ObamaCare lost. I am not sure how you can continue to support, with any kind of a straight face, that kind of abject failure.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

The previous question was ordered.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today and associate myself with the words of my friend and our chairman, the gentleman from Tennessee. I strongly recommend support for the newly amended S. 114, a bill, as the chairman so clearly stated, that not only extends veterans' access to care in the community, but provides additional funding for 28 critical leases to expand capacity and also makes sure we can recruit and retain the best medical professionals.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to note that on Monday, someone, another Member, mentioned that they felt a disturbance in the force on Monday is the way they described it. There has been a reputation that I think is rightfully earned from the leadership of the chairman and the members of the committee that the House Veterans' Affairs Committee is here to do the business of this Nation's veterans and the taxpayers and that the politics that are necessary and that are a part of getting things done take a backseat to that.

What you saw on Monday were disagreements. We could not come to an agreement. But instead of the theatrics of partisanship and instead of the politics of deconstruction, it was the politics of the possible. So instead of sulking away or sending out competing press releases, we came back together to try to find compromise on this. For that I am grateful.

I am grateful as a veteran, and I am grateful as a citizen that, on a morning when many Americans are waking up wondering about our politics and seeing the theatrics that go on, I am here to tell you that under the chairman's leadership, the honorable gentleman from Tennessee, he is guiding this House and tying it into the Senate in the best interests of our Nation's veterans, taking in the concerns of the minority side and taking in the concerns of the veterans service organizations in a way that also means compromise on my Republican colleagues' side.

That is hard to do, asking people to put their own personal ideology aside if

it is in the best interests of building a coalition and producing a piece of legislation that can pass through this House, the Senate, and be signed by the President. That is a tough order around here right now, and I am proud to stand with someone who has done it. I am proud to give my little piece of what it takes to do that.

I would encourage my colleagues, let's show a strong sign not just to our veterans, not just to this piece of legislation that, the gentleman was right, is absolutely critical for the care of our veterans; let's send a sign to our fellow citizens that this democracy still can function, this democracy still can find answers, this democracy can put American citizens first, and we can walk away from this knowing that our job was to come here and do exactly that, and it will be done.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano), my good friend, the vice ranking member of the full Committee on Veterans' Affairs, who is also from a great vacation State.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Brownley), my good friend, a long-time champion of veterans, and

the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Health.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Correa), a good friend and new member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maine (Ms. Pingree), who is also on the Maine Tourism Board.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, as you heard here today from numerous members of the committee and others, this is how business should be done: looking out for our veterans, compromises being made.

I do want to extend my thanks to Senator Isakson; Senator Tester; Secretary Shulkin; the DAVs and the other VSOs; and the staff on both sides of the aisle who are the ones who are carrying out late-night negotiations.

I think the gentleman from Tennessee, Chairman Roe, did bring up a good point: this is the beginning of tough decisions that need to be made, tough negotiations.

I hope everyone here understands that the continued good will and bipartisanship is going to be needed, because we have an opportunity to transform the VA into that 21st century VA, one that is more responsive to the needs of veterans, one that takes into account the realities of modern-day medicine that involves many outpatient clinics and different ways of delivering service, especially to rural veterans who we represent.

This is a great start. It is one that I think we go from a stop on Monday to what I hope can be a unanimous vote for a good, smart piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

For me, this morning, July 28, could be the beginning of a new spirit in the House of Representatives because of what happened last night in the Senate. Since we are talking about healthcare for veterans, I want to just take a moment to talk about healthcare for all Americans.

Last night, we saw a remarkable thing happen. We have had a poisonous atmosphere around healthcare in the United States for the past 7 years. We are the last industrial country on the planet to provide healthcare for the people who count on us for that kind of help and support. We can now give that up.

I hope we can take the majority leader at his word that he sees no further use in trying to beat this bill to death and that we can work together to improve it and get on to other things which we are so in need of.

But I do want to say that I appreciate very much the votes last night. I think Senator McCain showed, once again, that he is America's hero. And Senators Murkowski and Collins certainly are heroines of mine and I think let us know that women in positions of power can be counted on.

So, yesterday, in the Rules Committee, the majority passed a martial law rule granting themselves fast-track authority so they could get anything through, which I think scared even the Senate.

I read some news reports claiming this was a major victory. It was not a victory for either side fighting viciously over how we want healthcare to be given to our citizens, but it was certainly a victory for the American people, hundreds of whom stood last night here on the Capitol Grounds outside of the Senate begging to be able to continue their healthcare.

Imagine somebody with cancer, going through all of the pain and agony they have to go through, and wondering every day what in the world we are going to do here. Are they going to be left without healthcare, left without care that they can afford?

So I think, without a doubt, this is a good morning for all of us who are in the Congress of the United States to get together and to do better work. And I know of no agency, frankly, that

needs more attention than the Veterans Administration.

My personal experience with them has been somewhat like Whack-a-Mole: we think we have something settled and then suddenly we don't. We have to be advocates for every veteran in our district, directly to the VA, personally, oftentimes simply to get the most simple kind of treatment done for our veterans.

It is my wholehearted wish, and has been for some time, that we will get the Veterans Administration out of the building business, where they are abysmal failures, and let them concentrate on healthcare for veterans, which is their number one issue.

I am very pleased--and let me echo what my colleague, Mr. Collins, said--with leadership both in the House and the Senate running the Veterans' Affairs Committees now. Dr. Roe has been an exemplary friend to all of us and understands exactly what we are doing.

So I think this is important, as Mr. Collins has pointed out. Veterans Choice has not been very popular in my district. It is so complicated and so complex that it takes a lot of hand-holding even to use it.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support the underlying bill we will be voting on today. I wish I were able to say that more often.

The bill will fund the Department of Veterans Affairs Choice Program for 6 months and authorize a number of leases for major medical facilities throughout the country, and I echo its major importance.

The next rule we will be considering contains martial law authority that will allow the majority to bring up any bill they want with hardly any notice at all, and I hope we will not use that.

It has been a long week. Let's end it on a bipartisan note with a strong vote in support of this bill before us to help veterans across America.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would remind you that ``Maine is Vacationland.'' If you have not booked your Maine vacation, there is still plenty of time.

I would like to thank Chairman Roe, who is a Vietnam veteran himself and a doctor, in leading us down this path for better healthcare for our veterans.

Mr. Speaker, it was, I believe, our first Commander in Chief, George Washington, who said, and I paraphrase, that we can never expect young men and women in this country to step forward and fight for their country and give us the freedom that we all enjoy unless and until we take care of those who have already sacrificed on the battlefield. That is what this is about.

Mr. Speaker, in our State, we have about 125,000 veterans, and we love our veterans in the State of Maine. More than half of them are in the Second Congressional District that I represent, which is mostly central, down east, western, and northern Maine. Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, we know how to shoot straight up in Maine, and we just need to make sure we take care of our veterans who live in rural areas.

One of the great concerns I have--and I know the chairman and others on the committee have the same concern--is that what about if you are a veteran that lives far away from a medical hospital, a veterans hospital. In the State of Maine, we have one veterans hospital. It is called Togus. It is the first VA hospital in the country--about 150 years old--and it was put together first to take care of those who have served on the battlefield in the Civil War.

In northern Maine, you might live in Fort Kent or Van Buren or Madawaska and be a 5-hour drive away from Togus. If you are not feeling well, it is February and the snow is blowing sideways, it might be really tough to get down to Togus. That is why this Choice Program is so important. It allows our veterans who live far away from medical facilities to get their treatment close to home. This is something that I am a huge advocate of, and it is something we need to keep doing.

Now, one more thing I want to mention if I may, Mr. Speaker, is that we all know that veterans heal better with other veterans. We are not in any way trying to replace the veterans' facilities. We have healthcare facilities in this country. But the Choice Program allows us to augment that care through the Choice Program where they are able to go to private facilities.

Now, this emergency funding is absolutely critical. It will extend this program for 6 months instead of letting it run out of money in 3 weeks. It also includes something that is highly important. I am so grateful to the chairman for including it. It includes the ability to authorize a lease in Portland, Maine, for a brand-new, state-of-the- art, if you will, VA facility, a CBOC facility, an outpatient facility, that will serve about 4,000 veterans in the State of Maine.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Chellie Pingree from the First District of the State of Maine. I represent the Second District.

I encourage everyone in this body, Republicans and Democrats, to please take care of our veterans. Please vote for S. 114 to renew the authorization in the emergency fund for the Choice Program.

Mr. Speaker, I am here to support House Resolution 480 that allows for consideration of the Veterans Choice Act.

For a while there, I was confused. I wasn't sure what we were talking about there. I thought we were here talking about the Veterans Choice Act.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to support the Veterans Choice Act. Our veterans selflessly answer the call to protect our families, our communities, and all that we hold dear. We can never repay our veterans for that sacrifice. But our country, this government, made our veterans a promise to care for them. Mr. Speaker, if we do not act today, we will breach that promise by denying healthcare benefits to those veterans who access it through the Choice Program.

This bill will provide $2 billion for the Choice Program. Without this step, the Choice fund will be depleted by mid-August. VA Secretary Shulkin has made it clear that community programs are unable to care for veterans who need them if the Choice Program is eliminated.

Sometimes it astonishes me how it is that we wait until the last minute here to address problems like this.

Millions of America's veterans rely on the Choice Program. That is millions of promises we break if we fail to pass this legislation today. We cannot allow these funds to run out and leave our veterans without access to care.

Contrary to critics, today's debate is not about whether to privatize the VA. Secretary Shulkin has openly said numerous times that he has no plans to privatize the Veterans Administration.

Beyond that, today's debate is about people. It is about veterans who already use the Choice Program who would lose access to care if we do not pass this legislation. It is about allowing veterans choice.

Let's not play politics with our veterans. Over the course of the week, the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act has been improved with amendments. It would improve the hiring at the VA by enhancing recruitment, retention, and training of the VA workforce, but to those who continue to have concerns about veterans' choice, I ask we not let perfect be the enemy of good.

I have learned in life nothing is ever perfect. Lord knows I have learned that in business. I have certainly found that to be true about legislation during my short time here in Congress.

Mr. Speaker, the clock is ticking. We must not allow it to run out and default on the promises we made to veterans. We need to act today.