OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Jeff Miller and Richard Blumenthal Veterans Health Care and Benefits Improvement Act of 2016

Floor Speech

Date: Dec. 6, 2016
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Veterans Legal

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Ms. TITUS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the acting ranking member for yielding and for all the important work he has done on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6416, which includes a number of provisions offered by my colleagues on the committee and beyond to help our veterans. It actually includes two measures that I authored: one requires the GAO to conduct a study to find out the causes of underperforming VBA regional offices; the other extends the authorization for GME slots at the VA. This is a provision that will be especially valuable to UNLV's brand-new medical school, which is hosting its inaugural class this fall.

Unfortunately, however, the bill fails to address a major priority of both the VA and veterans themselves, and that is reforming the broken appeals process. Right now, there are 470,000 appeals languishing somewhere in the VA system. Veterans have to wait 2 to 3 years for them to be resolved as these cases churn through the process that Congress hasn't updated since the 1980s. If we don't act now, we will soon be telling our veteran constituents that they are going to have to wait 10 years before their appeals can be resolved, and it will be the fault of this Congress.

Despite having a solution that is ready to go that is widely supported by the administration and the VSOs, the Republican leadership refuses to bring the bill I sponsored on appeals reform to the floor without tying it to an accountability bill that strips VA employees of necessary civil rights protections.

We are told that passing appeals reform without accountability just won't work. Using that specious argument, we shouldn't pass any VA reform bill without accountability because it just won't work. So while I support this measure, I would urge my colleagues to address the appeals reform process before it is too late and we do further disservice to our Nation's heroes.

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